“Of course, I deprecate war, but if it is brought to my door, the bringer will find me home”
– James A. Garfield.
September 4, 2026
Police: “were familiar with who this individual was.” ?
Maybe because:
Neighbors Warned Police That Minnesota Mass Shooter Repeatedly Threatened Violence.
Two Dead, Plus Gunman, Multiple People Injured in Minneapolis Shooting
I won’t call this a mass shooting, even if the media is, but it’s still a horrific enough scene in Minneapolis this morning. Two people are dead, and six others were injured, including three police officers, in an incident that had the police showing up to something that was probably a combination of a TV cop show scene and something out of their professional nightmares.
It also appears that, thankfully, the gunman was also killed.
Officers confronted a barrage of gunfire, their vision clouded by a haze, as they responded to a shooting at a Minneapolis apartment building Wednesday that left at least two people dead and injured multiple others, officials said.
Police exchanged gunfire with the shooter as they rushed to rescue victims and bring them to safety, Minneapolis Police Interim Chief Bill Peterson said. Three officers were injured, two of them by gunshots.
The shooter, who officials have not yet named, was also confirmed dead, officials said. Peterson said police “were familiar with who this individual was.”
The mass shooting forced residents to flee the halls and hide in apartments as the chaotic scene unfolded.
What appears to be dozens of officers poured into the apartment building in response to the shooting, video obtained by CNN affiliate WCCO shows. Officers armed with long guns can later be seen keeping watch outside as several people are wheeled out from the building on stretchers. The area was surrounded by police cruisers, armored vehicles and ambulances.
“But for their heroic work, the death toll would have been far higher,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a news conference Wednesday night.
One person died at the scene and another died at a hospital, Minneapolis city officials said. Another three civilians were shot and are being treated at a hospital.
Third Circuit Upholds Machine Gun Ban, Creates Bruen Loophole for Gun Registration
The Third Circuit ruled that machine guns are protected “Arms,” then upheld the federal ban anyway. Its treatment of suppressor registration may be even more dangerous for gun owners.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit handed the federal government two victories Monday, upholding Joseph Paul Berger’s convictions for possessing machine guns and unregistered suppressors.
The machine gun ruling in United States v. Berger is bad enough. The court acknowledged that machine guns fall within the Second Amendment’s plain text, only to uphold the federal ban by declaring them unsuitable for lawful civilian use.
The court’s suppressor analysis could reach much further. A two-judge majority held that registration requirements judges consider “minimal” do not infringe the Second Amendment at all. Under that reasoning, the government can escape the historical test required by N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen merely by convincing a court that its registration scheme is not burdensome enough to count.
“Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.”
– Benjamin Franklin
September 3, 2026
Police say deadly Evansville shooting was self-defense
EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) – Evansville Police say a deadly shooting Saturday at a home on Delmar Avenue near Broadway was self-defense.
Police found 34-year-old Carson Helmling with a gunshot wound to the chest.
Police say Helmling owned the home. He had gotten into an argument with two people his brother had allowed to stay there. Officers say Helmling tried to get them to leave and swung a board at them.
Police say based on evidence and statements from witnesses, the shooting was done in self-defense.
“So initially officers responded, detained multiple people, both witnesses and the shooter, who remained on scene afterwards, and then began the investigative process. So through that they interviewed multiple people, people that were present as well as again the shooter, and determined that it was likely a self-defense situation,” said Sgt. Anthony Aussieker.
No arrests have been made. The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Evansville Police Department.
TRUST IN GOD AND KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY
Zohran/hasan/Ilhan fans now just directly calling for gangs of people to murder bank employees — as their ‘job.’
Understand, they want us dead. They aren’t joking.
There is no way to share a civilization with these people and something will have to be done. pic.twitter.com/uaHJfoUHNv
— Hon. Vickie Paladino (@VickieforNYC) September 2, 2026
The maintenance of the right to bear arms is a most essential one to every free people and should not be whittled down by technical constructions.
– State vs. Kerner, 181 N.C. 574, 107 S.E. 222, at 224 (1921)
September 2, 2026
“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”
–James Madison
September 1, 2026
Dolly Parton Carried a .38, and She Never Apologized for It
Dolly Parton died Tuesday at 80, and the tributes have poured in for the music, the movies, and the boundless philanthropy. Here’s one more thing worth remembering about the country legend: she was a gun owner who carried for self-defense, said so plainly, and never once seemed embarrassed by it.
The proof is in her own words. In a now-famous 1978 Playboy interview with journalist Lawrence Grobel, Parton described an early trip to New York City — a story any concealed carrier will recognize in their bones.
A Nashville Permit and a New York Night
Parton and her lifelong friend Judy Ogle, green to the big city, found themselves out on the street late at night when a group of men began closing in. “All of a sudden, these men started approachin’ us on the street,” she told Playboy. “They thought we were up for sale.” The men wouldn’t take no for an answer, and one got physical — “really pullin’ at me… just maul me, the whole works,” as she put it. Her friend, doubled over laughing against a wall, was no help at all.
“I Always Carry a Gun”
What those men didn’t know was that Parton was armed. She told Grobel she never traveled without a firearm — and decades later, she still didn’t.
“I always carry a gun,” she said. “A .38 pistol. I have a permit for it in Nashville. I just carry it for protection. I feel safer when I’ve got it. I just don’t like the idea of knowin’ I’m totally helpless.”
That’s the entire case for armed self-defense, delivered in a few sentences by a woman in a towering wig and a wide Southern smile — years before “concealed carry” was a mainstream phrase.
And She Was Ready to Use It
The .38 wasn’t a security blanket. When the man kept grabbing at her, she drew it. “I told the man, ‘If you put your hands on me one more time, I swear to God that I will shoot you,’” she recounted. “And I would have.” She added that she wouldn’t have aimed to kill — she’d have put rounds at his feet instead. The man backed off. The two women made it home. Her friend, by Parton’s account, never did stop laughing.
Carried in Spite of the Law
The quiet defiance in the story is the setting. Parton was carrying her Tennessee-permitted revolver in New York City — a place that, under its old Sullivan Act, treated the right to bear arms as a privilege doled out by bureaucrats. A Nashville permit meant nothing there. She carried anyway, because being helpless in a strange city wasn’t a trade she was willing to make. It would take until 2022 and the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision for the law to catch up to what Dolly Parton already understood on that sidewalk: the right to protect yourself doesn’t stop at a state line.
That refusal to be a victim — matter-of-fact, unashamed, entirely her own — was of a piece with everything else about her. There will never be another like her. Rest in peace, Miss Parton.