Just before Easter weekend, a 20-year-old student opened fire inside Florida State University’s student union, killing two and wounding six others before being shot and apprehended by law enforcement officers. Recent reports suggest that the suspect suffered from significant childhood trauma related to his parents’ divorce and custody battles, and many of his classmates had previously expressed concerns about his alarming rhetoric. Almost immediately after the shooting, some gun control activists sought to cast the blame on supposedly “lax” gun laws, and they called for a slew of new restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. It doesn’t matter to them, of course, that Florida prohibits individuals under the age of 21 from purchasing firearms or that the gunman used a handgun belonging to his stepmom, a sheriff’s deputy. Nor does it seem to matter that Florida’s permitless public carry laws apply only to people 21 or older, and even then, the law still prohibits the carrying of firearms on college or university campuses. Apparently forgotten, too, is the fact that Florida already imposes waiting periods on gun purchases and has so-called red flag laws that allow local law enforcement to disarm allegedly dangerous persons via court orders. At the same time, many of these gun control advocates refuse to acknowledge the very real barriers their preferred restrictions would place on the right of peaceable citizens to keep and bear arms—a right that often makes all the difference in the world for victims of violent crime. Almost every major study has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, according to the most recent report on the subject by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2021, a professor at the Georgetown McDonough School of Business conducted the most comprehensive study ever on the issue, and concluded that roughly 1.6 million defensive gun uses occur in the United States every year. For this reason, The Daily Signal publishes a monthly article highlighting some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place. (Read accounts from past months and years here.) The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use during crimes that we found in March. You may explore more by using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database. March 2, Houston, Texas: Police say that three armed teens broke into the home of a well-known online influencer and demanded access to her cryptocurrency account at gunpoint—allegedly pistol-whipping her out of frustration. Eventually, the woman led the intruders toward her husband, who was armed and waiting in a different part of the house. The husband opened fire at the intruders as they approached, wounding one and sending them all fleeing. Police tracked down and apprehended the suspects within several days, and they are now each charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery.  March 4, Lake City, Florida: A former MMA fighter broke into the home of a person who had an active restraining order against him and “rushed” toward a resident in a threatening manner. Someone inside the home fatally shot the man in self-defense. Several children and adults were home at the time, but none appears to have been injured.  March 9, Channelview, Texas: After weeks of escalation, a man with a history of stalking and making threats tried to break into his ex-girlfriend’s home while armed with a handgun. The woman’s current boyfriend—who also lived at the home—grabbed his own firearm and fatally shot the armed would-be intruder before he could harm anyone. March 10, Chesterfield County, Virginia: Police say that a woman shot and wounded her boyfriend in self-defense after he assaulted and strangled her during a domestic violence incident. The boyfriend was charged with strangulation and domestic assault. March 12, Reading, Pennsylvania: When a resident saw that a parked car was blocking his driveway, he approached the driver to complain. The driver and an acquaintance then got out of the car and confronted the resident “with their arms raised.” The driver and resident exchanged punches until the driver pulled a knife and stabbed the resident. At that point, the resident drew a handgun and shot his assailant in self-defense. The knife-wielding driver had been charged with aggravated assault. March 13, Seattle, Washington: A man was walking his dog when another dog grabbed his fury friend by the neck and refused to let go despite the man’s attempts to separate the two dogs. The man ultimately drew a handgun and fatally shot the aggressive dog in defense of his own pup before calling 911. March 19, Memphis, Tennessee: While waiting outside his girlfriend’s apartment complex, a man saw a would-be car thief enter his car, which he’d left running. The man chased the thief as he tried to drive away, so the thief shot at him. Fortunately, the man was armed and returned fire, striking the suspect several times and severely wounding him. March 22, Clovis, New Mexico: A shotgun-wielding homeowner successfully fended off a would-be intruder, shooting and wounding an 18-year-old who tried to break into the house in the middle of the night.   March 24, Hardeeville, South Carolina: Police say that an armed man tried unsuccessfully to carjack a food delivery driver before fleeing on foot and finding a new victim. Unfortunately for the would-be carjacker, his second victim was also armed (and, apparently, a better shot). The two exchanged gunfire, and the victim’s rounds struck the carjacker at least three times, killing him. It appears that neither the first nor the second victim was injured. March 25, Parker, Washington: A resident was getting into his vehicle when he saw another car pull up with two younger men inside, one of whom made threats about harming people inside the resident’s home. After the younger men drove away, the resident returned to his house, informed a second resident about the threats. This second resident armed himself with a .40-caliber handgun and went outside. He saw the same car turn around and speed back toward the house with its headlights turned off, then returned fire at the younger men in the car when they began shooting at the house. The two younger men—who police later determined were brothers—were injured during the shootout and fled, only to be taken into police custody when they sought medical treatment at a nearby hospital. March 28, Los Banos, California: Several armed intruders forced their way into a home in the middle of the night, only to be confronted by a homeowner with a legally possessed firearm. The homeowner engaged the suspects in a shootout, avoiding their bullets while striking and wounding three of them. Police ultimately arrested four of the five suspects believed to have been involved in the home invasion. Nobody seriously doubts that what happened at Florida State University is a tragedy, the recurrence of which we are all invested in preventing. But any solutions must not come at the cost of overly burdening the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, especially when those burdens threaten to interfere with the ability of innocent victims to protect themselves and others. The post 11 Defensive Gun Use Cases in March That Kept Citizens from Becoming Victims appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Americans are broadly supportive of the Trump administration’s battle with Harvard University, and majorities even support the federal government taxing the endowments of wealthy universities. This is according to a poll conducted by RMG Research and released by the Napolitan Institute on Wednesday. The major exception to the broad-based support for restricting funds to Harvard and taxing their endowments was Americans with postgraduate degrees. ?By a 45% to 34% margin, voters believe that billion dollar endowment funds at schools like Harvard should be taxed.?Most (52%) postgrads disagree. Only 34% of them think the endowments should be taxed.?As on many issues, post grads are out of step with the rest of the… pic.twitter.com/3TIAD0qio1— Scott Rasmussen (@ScottWRasmussen) April 24, 2025 About 14% of Americans have postgraduate degrees and 24% have a bachelor’s degree or higher according to 2020 U.S. Census data. The poll found that most Americans are in favor of restricting federal student loan money to universities with large endowments. Respondents were more evenly divided on the issues of revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status and providing federal research grants. The poll found that just 36% of voters think universities with endowments over a billion dollars should be allowed to rely on the federal student loan program to help students pay for tuition. Of the poll respondents with postgraduate degrees, 52% say the schools should be able to rely on federal student loans. Harvard currently has, according to some estimates, a $53.2 billion endowment. According to an investigative report covered by Fox News, the school in aggregate “has more than $7 million per undergraduate student.” The Napolitan Institute poll found that Americans are roughly evenly divided on whether universities with sizable endowments should receive research grants or other kinds of federal funding. Of those asked, 40% said “yes,” 39% “no.” Those with only bachelor’s degrees were also evenly divided on the question and those without higher degrees were against the funding by a 42% to 36% margin. Two-thirds of those with postgraduate degrees said these schools should receive funding. By a 45% to 34% margin, Americans support taxing schools with billion-dollar endowments. Fifty-one percent of those with bachelor’s degrees and 54% of those without were in favor of the tax while 52% of those with a postgraduate degree said the endowments shouldn’t be taxed. Then senator, now Vice President J.D. Vance proposed in 2023 an excise tax of up to 35% of “net investment income of private educational institutions whose assets had an aggregate fair market value of at least $10 billion in the preceding taxable year.” President Donald Trump has threatened Harvard University with pulling nearly $9 billion in federal grants over what the administration says are violations of civil rights law. On April 11, the Department of Education sent Harvard a letter “demanding the school agree to a host of reforms, including adjusting and enforcing disciplinary processes, improving screening of international students for ‘hostile’ views, and auditing ‘programs with egregious records of antisemitism.’” Harvard President Alan Garber responded by saying that the university would resist the executive branch’s demands. Already, $2.2 billion in federal grants and contracts have been frozen by the Trump administration. The president even took his threats a step further, saying that his administration would consider ending Harvard’s tax-exempt status if they did not comply with demands to end diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and create more protections for students facing threats of antisemitism. “Perhaps Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status and be taxed as a political entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ Remember, tax exempt status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in mid-April. The Napolitan poll found that Americans are evenly divided on the issue of revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status, with 41% saying “yes” and 41% saying “no.” Again, those with postgraduate degrees were more strongly in favor of Harvard. They said it should not be revoked by a 53% to 39% margin. Those with a bachelor’s as opposed to no degree were more supportive of ending Harvard’s tax-exempt status, with 45% approving the change and 39% opposing it. The post Americans Support Pulling Funds from Harvard, Taxing Endowments According to Poll appeared first on The Daily Signal.

David French Misses the Point

For All The $$$ Degrees, Huge Chunk o' Student Loan Borrowers Still Dumb as a Box o' Rocks

It may now haunt dreams worldwide, but has only been found on a single mountainside in Hawai'i.

The post 25+ Photos That Prove Cats Are The Absolute Funniest Creatures On Earth appeared first on Animal Channel.

PolitiFact editor-in-chief Katie Sanders is still decrying Meta Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to break up with the fact-checking companies, so, on Thursday, she wrote an article using the death of Pope Francis to argue he supported their work. Sanders cites two Francis quotes, “Francis outlined the societal harms of misinformation in 2018, tracing the origin of false news to the Garden of Eden ‘snake tactics’ that led to the original sin” and ‘“There is no such thing as harmless disinformation; on the contrary, trusting in falsehood can have dire consequences,’ he wrote Jan. 24, 2018, for World Communications Day. ‘Even a seemingly slight distortion of the truth can have dangerous effects.’”  In that document, Francis did write, “Praiseworthy too are those institutional and legal initiatives aimed at developing regulations for curbing the phenomenon, to say nothing of the work being done by tech and media companies in coming up with new criteria for verifying the personal identities concealed behind millions of digital profiles.” However, and for all his reputation as a “reformer” on certain matters of gender and sexuality, Francis was still fiercely critical of gender ideology and maintained there are only two sexes and used “sex” interchangeably with “gender.” PolitiFact, by contrast, claims such beliefs are wrong. Sanders then proceeded to list several Francis-related hoaxes, but she missed the main point. It is not objectionable if PolitiFact points out an AI-generated image was, in fact, AI-generated or that a certain article was satirical, provided they don’t slap a “false” label on a joke and suppress social media reach. The problem is when PolitiFact confuses its or its preferred experts’ opinions for facts, when it doesn’t fact-check itself before publishing, or applies double standards to similar claims.  Towards the end of her article, Sanders recalled, “In his 2018 message, Francis described journalists’ responsibility as the world’s informers to promote accurate, trusted reporting. He called on everyone to ‘promote a journalism of peace.’" She concludes: More than ever, the future of information integrity relies on ordinary people seeking truth and providing corrective information in the public square. Take it from Francis’ message: ‘The best antidotes to falsehoods are not strategies, but people: people who are not greedy but ready to listen, people who make the effort to engage in sincere dialogue so that the truth can emerge; people who are attracted by goodness and take responsibility for how they use language.’  Yes, “sincere dialogue,” not proclamations from St. Petersburg, Florida. Truth is not relative, and people should put in the effort to make sure what they are saying or posting on social media is true, but Pope Francis would agree that does not mean the truth is defined as whatever PolitiFact says it is.

The fight for women to maintain their spaces without males infiltrating them is important and only just beginning — but they’re not the only ones whose sacred spaces are being threatened. “We’ve had this debate here over the past few years about women’s-only spaces and how guys who say that they’re women seem to be invading them quite a bit, and I think that’s set off the appropriate amount of outrage,” Stu Burguiere of “Stu Does America” tells Independent Women’s Forum senior legal analyst Inez Stepman. “We’ve been having this huge national conversation mostly spurred by people of one sex who claim to be the opposite sex, and of men, biological men, invading women’s spaces. And of course, that’s a big deal in some ways, more sort of direct or obvious or urgent, when we see girls losing sports competitions and in a totally unfair way,” Stepman explains. “Or even we see women’s safety threatened in prisons because we’re putting male sex offenders who claim that they’re women in women’s prisons,” she continues, noting that when the tables are turned and it’s men losing their spaces, it's a “slower burn.” “Slowly, one by one, since the 1990s and early 2000s, there have been virtually no organized spaces where men can gather together and know that there won’t be any women around, and I think that’s been a negative,” she adds. And this has been affecting their social lives gravely, as one in four men under 30 don’t consider themselves to have any close friends. Stepman believes this to be a consequence of not only having fewer and fewer male only spaces, but also the modern obsession with sexualizing male friendships. In a piece she wrote for National Review on this topic called “Men Need Single-Sex Spaces Too,” Stepman uses Frodo and Sam from "The Lord of the Rings" as an example. “There’s all those gay jokes; it seems homoerotic to people because we’re so unfamiliar with the idea of close bonds and close friendships,” she explains, adding that even the military has now been infiltrated by women. But it doesn’t stop there. Once just for boys learning survival skills and, ultimately, how to be men, the Boy Scouts are now allowing girls to join. “I just think we have lost a lot by making sure that even the Boy Scouts is not allowed to be just for boys to learn how to be boys and grow up into men,” Stepman says. “I think it’s really time to reconsider that cultural push,” she adds. Want more from Stu?To enjoy more of Stu's lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will be meeting with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic who most recently broke the now-infamous "Signalgate" story. Trump asserted that Goldberg had previously published "fictional stories" about the president and his administration. Despite this, Trump will be interviewed by Goldberg and other journalists from the outlet for a story entitled "The Most Consequential President of this Century." 'I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it's possible for The Atlantic to be "truthful.'''"Later today I will be meeting with, of all people, Jeffrey Goldberg, the Editor of The Atlantic, and the person responsible for many fictional stories about me, including the made-up HOAX on 'Suckers and Losers' and, SignalGate, something he was somewhat more 'successful' with," Trump wrote on Truth Social. One "hoax" Trump is referring to includes Goldberg's article from September 2020 that claimed the president called Americans who died in combat "suckers" and "losers." The article relies on anonymous sources who alleged that Trump talked down on fallen soldiers during a 2018 trip to France, which was heavily refuted by over a dozen on-the-record sources, including several administration officials. "Jeffrey is bringing with him Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, not exactly pro-Trump writers, either, to put it mildly!" Trump added. "The story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, 'The Most Consequential President of this Century."Although Goldberg's journalistic career has not always been flattering to the president, Trump said he was open to the interview for personal reasons. "I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it's possible for The Atlantic to be 'truthful.' Are they capable of writing a fair story on 'TRUMP'? The way I look at it, what can be so bad – I WON!"Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Residents in Purcellville, Virginia, appeared to successfully pressure the town council on Tuesday to backtrack from its plan to dissolve the local police force.Purcellville Town Council members voted on April 9 to eliminate the police department, citing multiple reasons, including staffing issues. They argued that the move would save the town more than $3 million after falling into $50 million of debt to construct a wastewater treatment plant.'The four of you snuck agenda items in at the end of the meeting and took away my lawful right to comment on them.'The town council hinged its support for the department's elimination on the fact that Purcellville is rated as one of the safest towns in the state, and the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office already patrols the town from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. The sheriff's office also manages school resource officers. However, locals felt that the town council concocted the plan to dismantle the police force behind closed doors and failed to seek input. "The four of you snuck agenda items in at the end of the meeting and took away my lawful right to comment on them," one resident told the council, according to WJLA.The sheriff's office released a statement that appeared to support residents' concerns."Loudoun Sheriff Mike Chapman has neither been consulted about nor agrees with the representations in the document published in the Purcellville Town Council meeting packet describing the dissolution of its Police Department and replacement with services provided by the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office," the statement read. "Unfortunately, nothing in the published document has been discussed with Sheriff Chapman or the LCSO's Leadership Team.""While the LCSO is willing to provide law enforcement support and services to the Town of Purcellville, the Town Council has no jurisdiction to place conditions or requirements on the LCSO should its Police Department be dissolved," the sheriff's office added.Outraged residents packed the town council's Tuesday meeting to express their disapproval of the plan. Locals also launched a recall effort to remove several council members and Vice Mayor Ben Nett. During the meeting, the council members seemed to cave under the community's pressure, voting instead to fund the police force through next year. However, members plan to hold a full budget session to consider the department's future. The vote to keep the police force followed news on Monday that the Office of Attorney General authorized the state police to open a criminal investigation into Nett over a potential conflict of interest — while serving as vice mayor, Nett was also employed with the Purcellville Police Department. He was terminated from the force earlier this month.Commonwealth's attorney Bob Anderson stated that Nett has been "prevented from accessing all police department records, voting on all matters involving the PPD and attending all meetings involving discussions about PPD."Anderson claimed that Nett's support of disbanding the department appeared to be a "retaliation" over his recent termination and "a blatant conflict of interest."Nett did not respond to WTTF's request for comment.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!