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GA: Judge dismisses charges in Decatur Library shooting, rules shooter acted in self-defense
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The charges against a man who shot and injured another man after a dispute inside a library in February have officially been dismissed.
DeKalb County Superior Court Chief Judge Shondeana C. Morris ruled that Medicus Brown, 44, acted in self-defense in the shooting that took place on Feb. 2 at the Decatur Library, loThe Decatur Library, located at 215 Sycamore St. in downtown Decatur.
The 5 p.m. shooting at DeKalb County’s main library branch sent shockwaves through the community and prompted the temporary closure of the library as officials assessed the incident. The library later reopened with enhanced security, including stationing a police officer and security guard during all hours of operation. |
Firearms Companies Ask Supreme Court To Toss Suit Over Shooting
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Over a dozen companies in the firearms industry asked the Supreme Court Wednesday to throw out a lawsuit over a 2022 shooting.
The Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C. said in an April 2022 release that Raymond Spencer fired over 200 rounds from an apartment in the direction of a school, wounding four people before he committed suicide. One of the victims, Karen Lowy, who was wounded while picking up her 13-year-old daughter from school, sued firearms industry establishments over the incident. |
LA: Louisiana Hunters, Don't Miss This Tax Break
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Get ready to go tax-free for the first weekend in September, as Louisiana's annual Second Amendment Weekend Sales Tax Holiday will allow us to buy a plethora of items without having to pay the local and state sales tax.
Whether you love to hunt ducks, deer, or doves, if you've had your eye on a new gun or other hunting equipment, the weekend to save is Friday, September 4 through Sunday, September 6.
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CDC restores study acknowledging self-defense gun use buried during Biden era
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“Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to study design,” the CDC said on its website, while linking to a report summarizing surveys regarding defensive gun use. “The report Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence indicates a range of 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year.”
In 1996, Congress prohibited the CDC from underwriting advocacy for gun control following studies that claimed guns in the home were more likely to kill people in the home than to be used for self-defense. Pro-Second Amendment groups cited bias against firearms by some of the researchers. |
Cuccinelli to Argue Militia Clause Protects AR-15s in Supreme Court Brief
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“Former Virginia AG [and former Acting Deputy Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security] Ken Cuccinelli is drafting an amicus brief for a coalition of groups and key individuals in the Viramontes semi-automatic gun ban case that is coming in front of the United States Supreme Court,” Second Amendment advocate and NRA “reform director” Dennis Fusaro informed a close circle of fellow activists by email Saturday.
Fusaro, probably most known to AmmoLand readers through his involvement in attempting to persuade an unheeding Association to commit needed resources to a “get out the vote” effort in Virginia’s 2025 election, is soliciting funds to finance the legal work. |
Ketanji Brown Jackson and the Return of the Warren Court
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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has increasingly taken a more radical path by questioning originalism and textualism while adopting a selectively imperial view of judicial power, one that makes the Warren Court look modest and principled by comparison. She likely foretells the direction of future Democratic appointees. First, Democrats have been moving leftward and increasingly seek policy victories even when those would require a new judicial paradigm. Second, the Biden pool of lower-court judges from which future Democratic appointees are likely to emerge is considerably more left-leaning than the pools assembled by previous Democratic presidents. |
Gun Rights Group Says New FBI Data Contradicts Link Between Gun Ownership And Crime
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The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms issued a statement Thursday pointing to recent federal crime data as evidence that high rates of private firearm ownership do not lead to higher rates of violent crime.
The Bellevue-based gun rights organization cited numbers from an FBI crime report detailing year-to-year declines in several major offense categories between 2024 and 2025.
According to the federal data referenced in the group’s release, murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses dropped by an estimated 18.1 percent over the past year. Robbery offenses fell by an estimated 18.5 percent, and aggravated assault cases decreased by an estimated 7.2 percent nationwide. |
When My Father Told Me He Wanted a Gun, I Knew Everything Had Changed
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, my father told me he was thinking about buying a gun. Like many Americans, he felt a vague but powerful sense that the social order was on the brink of collapse. His nightly news was filled with stories of hospitals at full capacity, empty shelves at grocery stores, gas shortages and Black Lives Matter protests turning violent. My father had lost his trust in the government’s and the police’s ability to protect him. Increasingly, he feared his fellow Americans.
At a glance, my father looks like the last guy who’d ever want a gun. He is Jewish, an immigrant, a politically liberal city dweller. He didn’t grow up around guns. |
Myths & Facts Of Self-Defense Training
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Let me state at the outset that the point of this article is not to declare that what you’ve been doing and have been taught about self-defense handgun application is wrong. The point of this article is to get you to apply some practical thinking to certain aspects of defensive handgun use in a life-or-death situation.
My observations are based on my experiences in the military and as a police officer, and while training at some well-respected schools. Sometimes we get so caught up in the dogma we fail to think for ourselves.
So, what I’m offering is that there might be another way. Could some of our training be based on myths? |
CDC Restores Study Acknowledging Self-Defense Gun Use Buried During Biden Era
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) restored information regarding studies of the use of firearms for self-defense on its website, reversing a move made during the Biden administration.
CDC took down information about the studies during the Biden administration after a lobbying campaign by anti-Second Amendment groups backed by Democratic Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, according to emails obtained by The Reload. The restoration of the studies to the CDC site prompted criticism from anti-Second Amendment advocates. |
VA: Charges set aside against man accused in Oceanfront shooting that injured 6
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All charges against a man accused in a Virginia Beach Oceanfront shooting in March have been set aside, a judge confirmed on Thursday morning.
The Williamsburg Commonwealth’s Attorney, serving as special prosecutor in the case, asked the judge to nolle prosequi all charges against Matheus Cavalcante, including dismissing a pretrial violation. The judge confirmed all charges were “nolle prossed” — meaning prosecutors dropped those charges for now, but they could bring them back in the future. |
Ghost guns victimize everyone
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Whether you are making illegal ghost guns to fire at bottles behind your house or making them to arm a street gang, you are supporting and perpetuating a black market that by its very existence undermines responsible gun laws. Even the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court last year upheld Biden-era rules on the regulation of ghost guns.
Ed.: That was an APA case, not a 2A case. The Court was considering the *process* used to create the rule, not the constitutionality of the rule, which has since been ruled unconstitutional by the 5th Circuit on 2A grounds. |
New Guns 2026: Beretta APX A1 Ported
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Beretta has expanded its proven APX A1 family with the introduction of the APX A1 Ported, a new model engineered to provide enhanced control, faster follow-up shots and confident manipulation. Featuring a precision ported barrel and slide system, oversized controls and a factory optics-ready slide, and available in FDE and OD Green, the APX A1 Ported is built for shooters who demand speed and performance on the range, in competition or for personal defense.
At the heart of the APX A1 Ported is its precision porting system, featuring a single angled port in the barrel paired with seven ports in the slide. |
Poll: Voters Want Existing Gun Laws Enforced, Not New Ones
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A fresh Rasmussen survey suggests the public still isn’t buying the argument that more gun control means less crime. Most likely voters say the fix is already on the books and just needs to be enforced — and the numbers land at a pivotal moment, with the Supreme Court set to decide whether states can ban the very rifles a majority of Democratic voters say they’d like to see outlawed.
By Rasmussen’s tally, 52 percent of voters believe stricter enforcement of existing laws would do more to cut violent crime involving firearms — up two points from last September — while just 34 percent think passing new laws would work better. |
NJ: Anti-2A group plots new gun ban in blue state
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The gun-control organization March For Our Lives sent an email fundraiser announcing plans to pass a “weapons ban” in New Jersey, according to screenshots posted on social media.
The group, founded by survivors of the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, sought donations to support a “weapons ban” in New Jersey, according to the screenshots posted Monday. The group used the term “weapons of war” in the message, hinting that the target might be so-called “assault weapons.”
“The proposed weapons ban in New Jersey is a vital step toward getting weapons off our streets and protecting our neighborhoods from preventable tragedy,” the fundraiser claims. |
NJ: Third Circuit Got New Jersey’s Gun Ban Case Right—Now SCOTUS Must Make It Stick
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The en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit got one of the most important Second Amendment questions exactly right: New Jersey cannot ban commonly owned semiautomatic rifles and standard-capacity magazines merely because anti-gun politicians find them objectionable.
In a 10–5 decision issued July 17, the court held that New Jersey’s bans violate the Second Amendment. The majority recognized approximately 24 million AR-15s and similar rifles—and more than 100 million 30-round AR-15 magazines—as powerful evidence that these are ordinary arms possessed by ordinary Americans for lawful purposes. |
MN: One year after Annunciation, Minnesota must find middle ground on guns
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Immediately afterward, Gov. Tim Walz pushed for a special session to ban assault-style rifles. But with the Legislature narrowly divided and Republicans unwilling to support such a ban, the special session never happened.
Over the past year, legislators repeatedly heard excruciating accounts from Annunciation parents, students and first responders. Then Minnesota met its Sandy Hook moment with inaction, declining to impede access to assault rifles just as Congress did after 26 students and educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. |
SAF Celebrates 52 Years as Leader in Second Amendment Advocacy
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For more than five decades, SAF has joined forces with individuals, companies and other liberty-based organizations in the fight to ensure our right to keep and bear arms remains for generations. Since its founding, SAF has been instrumental in landmark legal victories, including the monumental McDonald v. City of Chicago Supreme Court decision, which flung open courtroom doors around the nation by applying the demands of the Second Amendment to the states as well as to the federal government. No longer could state governments violate the rights of their citizens any more than the federal government could. |
The Great Crate Debate
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I guess I was first exposed to large wooden crates from watching Looney Tunes Road Runner cartoons. Poor nemesis cartoon character Wile E. Coyote would order some hair-brained contraption from Acme, Inc. by letter, and a large crate would magically appear in minutes. Talk about great service! My next exposure to large freight was “A Christmas Story” when the father wins a contest and a large crate appears. The father sees the stenciled Fragile, painted on the crate and famously mispronounces it, “Fragilly.” |
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