Tennessee is home to Memphis, the U.S. city with the dubious distinction of having had the highest murder-by-gun rate in the nation in 2021. It was followed closely by Detroit, Baltimore and Cleveland.
The Republican-dominated legislature in Nashville has now decreed that firearms training be part of the public school curriculum. Youngest students will begin by learning the parts of a gun: Trigger, barrel, muzzle; and learn to distinguish a real gun from a toy.
Teachers in the lower grades are prohibited from introducing “live ammunition, live fire, or live firearms,” but are encouraged to bring in outside resources such as cooperating police officers to help guide discussions.
Utah and Arkansas have passed similar legislation, and will likely be followed by a raft of other red states this decade.
This article from the Times of India relies heavily on a report from Agence France-Presse (AFP) for background. AFP notes that the U.S. “has the highest gun violence fatality rate of any developed nation.”
That’s an easy phrase to toss around, and it is not a secret. A web search by the not-Google engine I use turns up 3 pages of articles all with similar titles, such as U.S. gun violence death rate is higher than much of the world.
Digging only slightly deeper into the data shows that nearly all U.S. homicides related to guns occur in major metropolitan areas. The Urban Health Collaborative publishes data at the city level from something called the “Big City Health Coalition” (BCHC). They observe that what these murder capitals have in common is high poverty, high unemployment, and racial segregation.
Painting with a very broad brush, you could honestly say that the U.S. contains a lot of murder by gun. It is also true that most of it happens in crime-ridden big cities.
In the case of Tennessee public schools, it seems the firearms training initiative is a step toward rationality.
Number 3. AP News. Department of Justice ends the bans on reset triggers. Gun control advocates are alarmed.
Well, of course they are. Anything friendly to the shooting crowd, like a modification to an AR-15, is sure to rile a certain segment of the population.
This article is about the forced-reset trigger, which is distinct from the binary trigger. They both result in the same thing — a semi-auto rifle with a higher rate of fire — but they approach it differently.
You may read the details in an article from gun rights dot org, and I am sure you will be a better person for it.
Essentially, the forced-reset trigger incorporates a spring that pushes the trigger forward after a shot is fired, allowing the practiced shooter to produce the next shot faster. The binary trigger is more complicated, in that it fires once when the trigger is pulled to the rear, and a follow-up shot when the trigger is released.
Both sound dangerous to me, but frankly, the purpose of any gun is that it be dangerous.
I had a conversation with a gunsmith once about the binary trigger he installed for a customer. It was, he admitted, more a shooting range toy than a practical enhancement.
Fun, sure, but when you pull the trigger, you own the bullet for the entire arc of its path.
The legal issue over the forced-reset or the binary trigger is all about whether they violate the National Firearms Act of 1934. That legislation was designed to keep John Dillinger, Frank Nitti, Bugs Moran and their ilk from shooting up the citizenry. Notably, the NFA, as it became known, outlawed unlicensed ownership of machine guns, noise suppressors, and short barreled shotguns and rifles.
The NFA license fee was $200, a huge impediment in 1934; not so much today.
Effective in January 2026, even that fee was removed by the One Big Beautiful Bill… or Trump’s Big Ugly Law, depending on your perspective. With monetary teeth removed from the NFA, that legislation has probably outlived its usefulness.
A Constitutional purist might point out that the Second Amendment was never about a gun’s features anyway; it was always about ensuring that the peoples’ right to firearms “shall not be infringed.”
First, the terminology: As I understand it, a trans-identifying individual is one who has rejected their God-given sex in favor of the opposite. When they are referred to as a “transgender man,” that means they started as a girl and decided to identify as a boy.
Since 2018, there have been five notable shooting incidents committed by trans-identifying persons.
September 2018, Rite Aid warehouse, Aberdeen MD, transgender man
May 2019, STEM School, Douglas County CO, transgender man
November 2022, Club Q LGBTQ nightclub, Colorado Springs CO, non binary
March 2023, Covenant School, Nashville TN, transgender man
August 2025, Annunciation Catholic Church, Minneapolis MN, transgender woman
Based on that history, the Trump Administration has recently announced plans to deny gun ownership to trans-identifying individuals. Reason Magazine, probably the opposite of a bastion of conservative politics, strenuously objects. So does the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Firearms Policy Coalition, the National Association for Gun Rights, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Strange bedfellows. Leave it to Donald Trump to get both liberals and conservatives to object to his agenda. And here nobody thought he could unite the country.
USA today, my favorite go-to source for a reliably leftist view, asserts there is most definitely NOT — I repeat, NOT — an epidemic of mass shootings by trans people. It is all in the details.
The FBI says a “mass shooting” involves at least 3 deceased victims, not counting the shooter. Therefore, the recent Catholic school incident would not qualify; there were only 2 children killed. Ergo, there was no trans-identifying mass shooting in Minneapolis that day.
Right now, Republicans are politically ascendant, and if they wish, they can un-gun trans people. But things can change very quickly in American politics, and removing Constitutional rights from a CLASS of people, rather than from INDIVIDUAL people, seems like a sweet idea which may turn very sour in the next decade.
I’m against it. Think of another way to stop the shooters.
For this one, I will pull a fast one on you. Please pay attention.
Just to see what would happen, I gave ChatGPT the reference to this New York Post article and asked it to generate a satirical essay.
Chat’s first effort was satirical but decidedly liberal, so I explained that I am a politically conservative Christian. I submitted one of the sections from last week’s ANR to show it how I write, then asked it to try again.
What follows is entirely ChatGPT’s creation, based on the New York Post article, and is completely un-edited by me:
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled that 18- to 20-year-olds have the same Second Amendment rights as everyone else. Imagine that—if you’re old enough to vote, pay taxes, and fight wars, you’re old enough to buy a handgun without a permission slip from Washington.
For years, the message from D.C. was clear: “Here’s an M4 rifle, kid—good luck in Kabul. But don’t even think about buying a Glock back home.” Evidently, the judges finally realized the Constitution doesn’t come with a 21st-birthday candle.
Of course, critics are horrified. These are the same folks happy to hand 19-year-olds credit cards, marijuana dispensaries, and gender studies degrees, but a handgun? Absolutely not!
In the real world, though, this ruling means a young woman walking across campus at night doesn’t have to rely on a “safety escort program.” A young man starting his first job doesn’t need grandma as backup against a carjacker.
So, congratulations to America’s 18-year-olds: you’re finally recognized as adults. Just remember—own responsibly, train carefully, and save the target practice for the range. Unless it’s your student loan bill—that one’s fair game.
This is why a lot a content creators are freaked out over AI. The above sounds a lot like me… or rather, a plastic version of me. If you were not familiar with my writing, you might easily be fooled.
To quote Samuel F. B. Morse (who was quoting Numbers 23:23) in his first public telegraph demonstration : What hath God wrought?
And now this: (Not satire)
Introducing Ammo Squared, a really good idea.
For you closet preppers waiting for the zombie apocalypse, here is an easy way to accumulate cartridges of your choice in quantity. Because you KNOW you will NEVER have enough ammunition when the balloon goes up.
Ammo Squared, a Texas company (of course) makes it easy and painless to accumulate your preferred lead missiles. For about any amount of money charged to your card, you can establish regular purchases of ammunition at reasonable prices. Ammo Squared will warehouse it for you and ship whatever is in your account whenever you ask for it.
When you use my referral link below, Ammo Squared will credit $35.00 to your account (and mine, too). When you get there, click Join Today.
This is a limited offer, good only through the end of September 2025. Your initial purchase must be at least $20.00.
So if I read this right… spend $20 on ammo, and get another $35 you can spend on more ammo. Cancel anytime, of course, but probably wise to just let it build up a while.
Endorsed by Dan Bongino and Glenn Beck.
See selections and prices here.
Browse the referrals here.
Read the legal here.
YouTube here.
Click the link to get started. My very humble armory thanks you… and yours will, too.
And thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, September 12, 2025. Examine the shelves next to your gun safe, count the empty spaces, and ask yourself: When the Alien Invasion shows up, do I REALLY have enough .223 to share with my neighbors?
Have a good weekend!
