If you bought a new gun in October, you’re not alone—the FBI’s NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) processed 1,976,759 background checks for the month, nearly 400,000 more than last October. And as it turns out, if you bought one between May and September, you’re also in good company—this past month was the sixth in a row to set a record for number of checks. 

While NICS checks aren’t a perfect measure of gun sales, they’re an accurate indicator of trends—and in recent years have revealed a lot about America’s political climate. After President Barack Obama’s election, gun sales spiked, and when he announced sweeping gun-control goals in January 2013, that year saw a record-breaking 21,093,273 checks. 

The FBI has already processed 17,584,346 NICS checks in 2015, and may exceed 2013’s total by year’s end. This suggests that while Americans see Obama as a danger to freedom, the possibilities presented by a Hillary Clinton or Martin O’Malley seem an even bigger threat.

At Forest Hills Elementary School in rural Pennsylvania, Daniel Krestar leads an annual program called “Gun Shop.” The optional class, which is also open to parents, teaches kindergarteners how to stay safe around firearms. Materials include NRA Eddie Eagle GunSafe® videos among others. 

“We wanted to teach the course because statistics showed that 80 percent of local homeowners kept guns in their homes,” said Krestar. “This course isn’t pro-gun or anti-gun.”

A school taking advantage of free NRA materials to teach gun safety—smart move, right? Apparently not to Jennifer Hoppe, deputy director of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. She thinks “it’s atrocious to put the onus of gun safety onto children.” 

For a group with “sense” in their name, they often show very little of it. Having a child properly trained in gun safety is the best kind of “gun sense” there could be.

The woman who illegally purchased a Glock handgun and 50-round drum magazine for her boyfriend—a convicted felon and known gang member who used the gun to kill an Omaha police officer—was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross to a year of probation.

Jalita Johnson, 26, who admitted she’d made the illegal straw purchase and supplied the firearm to the killer, could have been sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Police Officer Kerrie Orozco was working her last shift before taking maternity leave when she was slain by Johnson’s boyfriend, Marcus Wheeler, 36, who was killed in the shootout with police.

The Omaha police union called the court date the “day the federal justice system failed,” and asked, “What kind of message does this send to offenders in the future that will purchase guns for violent felons that are prohibited from possessing firearms?”

On Wednesday, Martin O’Malley’s presidential campaign released a new ad titled “Sound Familiar?” The 60-second spot closed with a clip of O’Malley at the podium, saying, “… How many senseless acts of violence do we have to endure as a people before we stand up to the congressional lobbyists of the National Rifle Association? How many more Americans have to die?” The crowd broke out in the sort of thunderous applause you’d typically associate with the winning touchdown at a championship game. 

But wait a second: The clip in the ad came from O’Malley’s speech at the 2015 Conference of Mayors—not exactly an arena event. Given that fewer than 300 mayors RSVP’d, we were skeptical, so we compared the ad with actual event footage. While there was a smattering of polite applause in the original, it’s very clear that the audience response in the ad was greatly enhanced. 

But then again, we’ve come to expect this sort of thing from anti-gunners.

The Daily Beast published a surprising editorial from a self-described “strong supporter of gun control”: “Hey, White Liberals, the NRA Isn’t the Point.” In this thoughtful piece, the author describes coming to the realization that the gun control pushed by the liberal elite fails to address inner-city violence that claims predominantly black victims: “To be blunt, measures that might prevent another Columbine or Sandy Hook are unlikely to prevent another Chicago.”

While we’d dispute the premise that the type of gun-control measures being proposed work anywhere, we applaud the author for identifying the hollowness of the typical anti-gun narrative. Instead of gun control, she recommends stricter penalties for gun offenders. “So if gun-control supporters really want to decrease gun violence, maybe it’s time to stop focusing solely on how to outmaneuver the NRA and focus on convincing progressives that incarceration isn’t a dirty word if it is used to punish behavior that is deadly, dangerous, and disproportionately harmful to communities of color.”

A Charlotte, N.C., woman is being touted by her husband as a hero after fighting off two armed home invaders to protect herself and the couple’s 4-month-old son.

Semantha Bunce was at home with her son when two armed men kicked down her front door. Hearing the ruckus, Bunce put the baby in a crib upstairs away from the intruders, grabbed her gun and confronted the home invaders, trading several shots with them. Hit by gunfire, Bunce nevertheless was able to run off the home invaders and save herself and her young son.  

Bunce is recovering at a nearby hospital and is listed in stable condition. “Not a scratch is on him (the baby),” Bunce’s husband, Paul, said later. “She brought the matter away from him and definitely protected him. She laid him down in the crib upstairs in our room. He was safe there.”