Chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation's Investigative Journalism Project. Recovering newspaperman, tactical shooter, Army vet, ex-LEO, 1*, Rum snob.
Sarasota
Joined February 2013
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Lee Williams retweeted
What a bonkers argument. First of all, if AR15s aren't popular than no rifle is, because they are the most popular rifle.
Second, you only get that 24% figure if you ignore Cook County's argument that there are 600 mass shootings per year, because AR15s are a tiny fraction of those! Maybe the Court should have them duke it out on that point I guess.
See how they shift what a "mass shooting" is from moment to moment depending on what they need to argue?
Lee Williams retweeted
This absolutely does suck. @GovRonDeSantis has the opportunity to do an amazing thing and make Seminole Wind the new state song for Florida.
Lee Williams retweeted
AG James Uthmeier Joins CFO Blaise Ingoglia, and FDLE Commissioner Larry Keefe in Orlando to Announce the Arrest of Kissimmee Mayor Following Public Corruption Investigation xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1kKzDPRQn…
Lee Williams retweeted
This morning, we arrested Kissimmee mayor Jackie Espinosa and are charging her with Grand Theft and Organized Scheme to Defraud.
We will be holding a press conference at 2pm at our Orlando office with CFO Ingoglia and FDLE Commissioner Keefe to provide more information.
Lee Williams retweeted
This morning my team, along with @fdlepio, arrested the Mayor of Kissimmee for abusing her office for personal gain.
I am proud of the outstanding work that my auditing team and Criminal Investigations Division did to uncover the alleged misuse of taxpayer dollars and to ensure that Jackie Espinosa’s corruption did not go without recourse.
See you at 2pm with more info with @AGJamesUthmeier
Lee Williams retweeted
19-year-old Jeffrey Carney’s espionage cost the US an estimated $15,000,000,000 in the mid-1980s.
In early 1983 Carney was stationed in West Berlin with the US Air Force’s 6912th Electronic Security Group as a German linguist, translating captured audio transmissions for the NSA. He was also a deeply lonely, secretly gay, and had joined the Air Force to get away from a poor family situation.
After a night of drinking in April 1983, he crossed the line between West and East Berlin and requested to defect to East Germany. He naively believed he would be welcomed with open arms and given a place to live.
After extensive questioning by Stasi agents, he was convinced to return home immediately. Their leverage was a threat to surreptitiously report to his commanding officer that he had attempted to defect. For the next year, he secretly photographed more than 100 Top Secret documents and turned them over to his Stasi handler, sometimes leaving them at a dead drop location inside an ammunition box in the forest near Eiskiller.
The intelligence he provided was so sensitive that even spymaster Markus Wolf himself was said to be amazed by what Carney provided. When he was transferred back to the US the following year, he continued meeting with Stasi agents on trips to Mexico and Brazil.
On a trip to Mexico City in 1985, he went to the East German embassy and again requested to defect. This time he made it, after flying first to Cuba, then Prague, and finally to East Germany. What he found was hardly the paradise he had hoped for. He was provided a one-room apartment which had been bugged by the Stasi. There he lived and worked until the Berlin Wall fell. One day in 1991 after reunification, he was captured on the street in broad daylight by Air Force OSI agents and extradited to the US for trial.
After twelve years imprisonment at Fort Leavenworth, Carney was released. He attempted to emigrate to back to Germany, but his application was denied. The country he had betrayed America for no longer existed.
#afosi #usairforce #eastberlin #westberlin #defector
Lee Williams retweeted
Perhaps no claim has been as frequently repeated by the gun control side in recent years than "guns are the leading cause of death for kids."
Our new Fact Sheet examines this claim in detail using the CDC's provisional data for 2025, which is the most recent available.
The takeaway: while gun-related causes temporarily passed traffic-related causes during the crime surge years, you can only claim guns were the leading cause of death among minors if you:
1. Ignore that accidents as a combined category have always been a far greater cause of death for that age cohort; and
2. simultaneously combine all gun-related deaths regardless of intent (suicides, homicides, and accidents).
Lee Williams retweeted
Virginia law prohibits carrying firearms in certain state-owned buildings, like highway rest stops and ABC stores.
GOF and @GunOwners are challenging these restrictions in court. Virginians shouldn’t have to surrender their rights to enter a government building.
Lee Williams retweeted
The French sent us the Statue of Liberty, Trump should have sent some Rooftop Koreans to Paris.
Lee Williams retweeted
Victimless crimes for Constitutional arms-bearing activity... actually, it was the keeping part. Just like Dexter Taylor. NY, MA, California, and other states incarcerate people for exercising a constitutional right! What would our Founding Fathers say? How is putting Demetrio in Jail making our communities safer? This is why we led the citizens' repeal of Chapter 135 and the NO ON 9 Campaign. Enough is enough! #noonnine #freedemetrio
Probation department recommends no jail time for Demetrio Daga, but judge may disagree.
Daga is facing up to 40 years in a New York state prison.
The Albany County Probation Department has recommended that Demetrio Daga be put on probation and serve no time behind bars, according to a recent report.
The news came last month after a jury found Daga guilty of violating 15 New York State firearm charges. New York is one of very few states that criminalize homemade firearms.
Unfortunately for Daga and his family, County Court Judge Andra Ackerman has said she may not follow her own probation department’s recommendations, and that she will likely sentence the 44-year-old married father-of-two to decades in a state prison.
Judge Ackerman did not respond to calls or emails seeking her comments for this story.
“The Albany County Probation Department is an arm of the judiciary,” Daga’s defense attorney Kevin O’Brien said Monday. “They looked at the charges, interviewed Demetrio [Daga], and looked at court documents. Frequently—almost always—the court relies upon their report.”
O’Brien credits Daga for the no-jail recommendation, whom he described as a hardworking and honest family man.
Daga, who remains held in the county jail, is hearing words of thanks from across the country for standing up for his Second Amendment rights and for not accepting a plea deal.
“These are not privileges. These are our rights,” he said Monday morning. “I do not understand how someone with my history is facing decades in prison away from my wife and children. I didn’t threaten anyone. I didn’t even say anything negative about law enforcement. I was exercising a constitutional right within the parameters of the law.
“These rights are plainly humor.” spelled out in the Constitution: ‘Shall not be infringed.’ People who haven’t harmed anyone should not be facing decades in prison for activities that are protected by the Constitution,” Daga said. “If we allow them to continue, it’s terribly wrong.”
Daga said he now has a “newfound respect” for the prison guards.
“They deserve a lot of credit,” he said. “They keep their humanity and their sense of humor."
Case history
Daga was convicted of 15 state charges: one count of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the First Degree, two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree, three counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Third Degree, and nine counts of Criminal Possession of a Firearm.
Only the New York State Police were involved in the investigation and his arrest. Neither the ATF nor any other federal agency took part.
“Demetrio Daga was buying and producing gun parts and building weapons in his home,” Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Jessica Blain-Lewis told the jury during closing arguments. “And he wasn’t just someone who builds guns, he was building an arsenal.”
In 2016, Blain-Lewis appeared on the CBS hit show “Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X.”
What she referred to as Daga’s “arsenal” consisted of 13 handguns, which she called “ghost guns,” 22 “AR-style assault rifles,” which she also said were “ghost guns,” 18 “AR-style assault rifles” with serial numbers, and two pump-action shotguns.
Family irate
Daga’s mother, Domenica Greco, is livid that her son is facing any time behind bars.
“I have a million reasons!” she exclaimed. “He’s not a criminal. He’s never broken the law. He’s a good person. He’s a loyal husband and a great father. He loves his family. He would never even hurt an animal. He’s not a criminal. He’s never done anything to hurt anyone. He believes in the Second Amendment, and believing in the Second Amendment does not make you a criminal.”
While her son is facing up to 40 years in prison, Greco said she sees news stories almost daily about felons caught selling guns and drugs getting much less time behind bars.
“The mentality in this area is that guns are bad,” she said. “We just had a 15-year-old who was shot and killed at 2:30 a.m. on Homecoming Weekend. All the media said we’ve got to get rid of the guns. It was the gun’s fault, they said. It wasn’t the fault of someone shooting the gun. This is the mentality we’re dealing with in Albany.”
She repeated that Daga was never accused of misusing or selling any of his homemade firearms.
“He was exercising his Second Amendment rights in his home, and they went after him,” she said. “Now, they’re gonna make an example out of him. My son does not belong in prison. I don’t believe in the criminal justice system the way it is now. How is society being served by him being in jail?”
Demetrio Daga’s family has established a GiveSendGo page for those who are able to help.
The Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project wouldn’t be possible without you. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support pro-gun stories like this.
@2AFDN
Lee Williams retweeted
Europe on fire proves the value of our Second Amendment.
As arsonists, rioters and looters swarmed the streets of Paris Sunday night, French police were completely ineffective and President Emmanuel Macron and his wife were off attending a concert, which featured Céline Dion.
Well-planned rioting and thievery are taking place throughout France and other European countries. Some say the actions are coordinated by the extreme far left and will continue unabated. France is still six months away from its next presidential election.
Europe is on fire.
Its victims are on their own.
Extreme anti-gun laws throughout the continent have helped fuel the fires.
France has some of the strictest anti-gun laws in the world.
For a permit to purchase a “sporting arm”—not a handgun or a semi-automatic rifle—the applicant must be 18 years old and possess a valid hunting license or a shooting club membership. The applicant must also have completed and passed a medical exam, a mental health exam, an extensive criminal background check and government-approved firearm safety training.
Once they’ve completed all of these legal requirements, they are required to submit an application to their local police. This alone can take months or even years. Many applicants have been rejected for no reason.
Even if they manage to pass the requirements and purchase a firearm, concealed carry is outlawed. Gun safes are required. Ammunition must be stored separately, and law enforcement can conduct an in-home inspection whenever they want.
Anyone caught violating these rules can face the loss of the firearm, stiff fines and years behind bars.
France’s stiff anti-gun laws have had a horrific impact on the ongoing crime spree.
One female shop owner in Paris tried to reason with the masked rioters as they calmly walked past her into her shop and stole her merchandise.
“What’s the point of doing this?” she asked the criminals who paid her no mind.
If she had a firearm, she might have been able to stop them, right?
This is the point where many will point to our Second Amendment and claim that the riots spreading across Europe could never happen here.
Unfortunately, that is not true.
We have far too many large America cities where the Second Amendment has been bankrupted by local politicians, where the crazy French gun-ownership requirements seem almost par for the course, where only the bad guys have guns.
Try to buy an AR, magazines and ammunition in New York, Boston or Washington D.C. and you will soon learn this is true.
Millions of Americans are being stripped of their Second Amendment rights by their state and local politicians.
Honest, hard-working Americans are serving decades in state prisons for “offenses” that aren’t even considered illegal in free states. Meanwhile, those of us who live in states that recognize the value of the Second Amendment often take for granted the pain and suffering the victims and their families are going through.
“Move!” we tell them. “Get out of New York!”
This, friends, needs to change, and we can help make the change.
When we hear about the decades in prison someone received in a deep blue state for an “offense” that’s not even considered a crime in the rest of the country, we should be spurred into action. After all, we are still one country.
Our Second Amendment rights are simply magnificent. They allow us to defend ourselves. However, we need to ensure that every American has equal access to these rights—as the Founders intended—regardless of where they have chosen to live.
We need to make this a key issue while we have a President and an administration who value both our concerns and the Second Amendment.
We need Second Amendment rights and protections for every American.
@2AFDN
