Georgia police are searching for two suspects believed to be “armed and dangerous” after they were involved in a home invasion—an act that left a third suspect dead.

Investigators told the Gwinnett Daily Post that a man and woman were home last week when Antonio Leeks, 28, kicked in the front door and entered the residence with the two other suspects. The woman, a local business owner, grabbed a handgun and fatally shot Leeks. One of the other two invaders fired back as they fled the scene in a car. 

Police Corporal Deon Washington told reporters the two escaped suspects are black men between 20 and 30 years old, around six feet tall with slim builds and facial hair. Detectives also released footage of the two from home surveillance video in hopes someone could identify them, while Washington added they should be considered a “threat to the community.”

Armed citizen deniers claim that ordinary Americans don’t have the skills or training to respond to an active shooter with guns. When one such individual recently took down the Minnesota mall slasher, Bloomberg.com denied his “good guy with a gun” status because he was too good. 

Jason Falconer is a former police chief, a gun range owner, an NRA-certified instructor and a competitive shooter. In Bloomberg’s view, that disqualifies him from “good guy with a gun” status: “By all accounts, Falconer is a good guy and his heroics saved lives. What made him effective, however is that he’s an expert guy.”

NRA has trained more than 50,000 instructors, and sanctions more than 11,000 shooting matches annually. The United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) and the International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPS) claim over 22,000 members each. Armed citizens log about 760,000 defensive gun uses per year (versus 11,000 gun homicides). Yet Bloomberg would disarm all of us (including Falconer) for either being ill-trained, or well-trained, or … you know, just, whatever.

Two more county sheriffs have announced their opposition to Maine Question 3—the anti-gun ballot initiative that outlaws common gun transfers.

Aroostook County Sheriff Darrell Crandall, a 30-year Maine law enforcement veteran, posted his opposition on Facebook: “I studied the language of this initiative some time ago when it was first released,” Crandall said. “It is a mess and reaches way too far. It would needlessly damage hundreds of years of tradition and would do nothing to make us safer. If this was law right now I would have been in violation three times this month and close to a dozen times this year alone.”

Oxford County Sheriff Wayne Gallant agrees, saying in a news release: “If we want a law that addresses criminals and others that should not be in possession of firearms, let’s craft a bill that addresses those issues, and not create a hardship at the expense of all the good citizens in our state who are law-abiding hunters, sportsmen, protectors of property and responsible gun owners. I cannot support Question 3.”

To learn more about Question 3, visit votenoquestion3.org.

A new report released Monday by the Brennan Center for Justice shows that crime rates remain near “historic lows” despite a slight 1.3-percent rise driven by surging violence in Chicago. The NYU Law School’s nonpartisan law and policy institute also projects a 13.1-percent rise in the national murder rate, but nearly half of this increase is also attributable solely to Chicago. “These findings undercut media reports referring to crime as ‘out of control,’ or heralding a new nationwide crime wave,” the report says.

The picture is much more positive outside of Chicago. Although Baltimore and Washington, D.C., caused the national homicide rate to rise in 2015, researchers expect a 9.9-percent and 10.9-percent decrease in murders. “The average person in a large urban area is safer walking on the street today than he or she would have been at almost any time in the past 30 years,” the report says. “Warnings of a coming crime wave may be provocative, but they are not supported by the evidence.”

Citing recent shootings in public housing in his district, Michael Lundy, the executive director of the Birmingham, Ala., Housing Authority, this week proposed a gun ban for residents, possibly as part of their lease agreements, AL.com reports.

On Sept. 11, four people were shot, and one of them killed, in a shootout in Marks Village, a Gate City public housing project. This week, another man was shot in the area. “I don’t care who likes it or who doesn’t,” Lundy said of his proposed gun ban for public housing residents. “We can’t have that in public housing.” 

But as public housing residents have learned over the years, gun bans don’t disarm the criminals who terrorize their communities—all they do is disarm the good, law-abiding citizens who just might need firearms to protect themselves. Denying their civil rights isn’t just counterproductive on a practical level—it’s also morally wrong.

On Wednesday, the NRA’s Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) announced its endorsement of incumbent Pat McCrory for governor of North Carolina. 

During his first term in office, McCrory was a powerful advocate for Second Amendment rights in the Tar Heel State. His pro-gun legacy was cemented with the signing of the most comprehensive pro-gun measures in state history, HB937, which reformed the Concealed Handgun Permit (CHP) system. But his tireless advocacy on the part of gun owners didn’t end there. In July 2015, he signed the Outdoor Heritage Act, removing the outdated prohibition on Sunday hunting, and in August he signed HB562, which further streamlined the CHP process, improved range protection laws, strengthened statewide pre-emption statutes and more. 

“I urge our members and supporters in the Tar Heel State to vote Pat McCrory for governor in November,” said NRA-PVF Chairman Chris W. Cox. “McCrory will stand with NRA to protect our freedoms.”