Free Republic

CHICAGO, IL.: A nationwide boycott of Starbucks stores and its products will be launched on Valentine’s Day 2012. Its goal is to eliminate the risk of guns in public places and ultimately to bring sane gun laws to the U.S. This boycott is being called by the National Gun Victim’s Action Council (NGAC), a network of representatives of 14 million gun victims, the faith community — including the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, United Church of Christ, Fellowship of Reconciliation — and secular groups working to reduce gun violence and many of the organizations that support passing sane gun laws.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wants to prohibit patients from protecting themselves. If you are a medical marijuana patient in one of the 16 states (plus the District of Columbia) that allow for it, you’ve got reason to believe lately that the government has it in for you. You’ve got federal raids on the places where you can conveniently buy your medicine, the governor of Arizona trying to overturn in court her citizens’ choice to institute a medical marijuana system, and Michigan’s attorney general trying to make life as hard as he can for those using the...

The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution guarantees the American people the right to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, exactly 220-years ago today.

Under one proposal the Assembly passed Tuesday, homeowners acting in self-defense would be immune from criminal or civil liability of they kill someone who is unlawfully in their residence, vehicle or workplace. The bill requires a court to presume that the use of deadly force was necessary to prevent harm to the person being attacked or another person when the attack happens at the defender's home. "The citizens of this state, they just want to feel secure in their homes," said the bill's sponsor Rep. Dean Kaufert, R-Neenah. "They just want the ability to protect themselves without the fear of...

SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. -- The Spartanburg County Sheriff is known for speaking his mind, and at a news conference on Monday, he didn't hold back his anger and frustration after a woman was attacked in a park over the weekend. Read more: http://www.wyff4.com/news/29638219/detail.html#ixzz1cNwbCCYi

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry delighted a conservative audience in South Carolina Monday with his simple stance on gun control legislation. "Honestly, the next question is so easy that I don't even want to ask it," event host Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC) told Perry. "Are you for gun control?" "I am actually for gun control," Perry deadpanned. "Use both hands." The Texas governor followed his joke by flashing a toothy grin and giving the audience a thumbs up.

Manassas, VA --(Ammoland.com)- It can be argued that the only personal property specifically protected by the US Constitution is firearms. While the Fourth Amendment promises “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” and requires a sworn warrant “describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized,” it does specifically allow for such seizure if the “i’s” are properly dotted and the “t’s” correctly crossed. Similarly the Fifth Amendment guarantees against a person being “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private...

The ATF’s website has an FAQ section. First up: “I want information on relief of federal firearm disability? (I am a felon but want to own a firearm, how do I get my privilege restored?)” According to dictionary.com, a “privilege” is “a right, immunity or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most: the privileges of the very rich.” It behooves the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to remember that all Americans have the RIGHT to bear arms. And once again, I state my firmly held conviction that ANY American who has paid his or...

As federal criminal statutes have ballooned, it has become increasingly easy for Americans to end up on the wrong side of the law. Many of the new federal laws also set a lower bar for conviction than in the past: Prosecutors don't necessarily need to show that the defendant had criminal intent.

The Seventh Circuit’s decision in Ezell v. Chicago is a tremendously important case for Second Amendment doctrine. The key rules from Ezell: use originalism from both 1791 and 1868 to determine if an activity is within the scope of the Second Amendment right. If it is, apply First Amendment doctrine, and make the standard of review more stringent when the activity is closer to the core of the right, and when the government is prohibiting rather than regulating. Generally speaking, when looking for guidance, look to Eugene Volokh. As the above rules apply to the case at bar: The right...

Gun Control: Chicago's new police superintendent blames Alaska's ex-governor for inner-city gun violence and crime, and says gun-rights advocates are racist. Disarming victims doesn't prevent crime, sir. Speaking to the choir, literally, about gun control, Garry McCarthy, former police chief of Newark, N.J., told an audience at St. Sabina Church in the Windy City about leaving a homicide scene in Newark, returning home and flipping on the TV to find an episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska." "She was caribou hunting and talking about the right to bear arms," McCarthy said. "Why wasn't she at the crime scene with me?" We...

Scandal: Rather than a botched attempt to catch criminals, was the ATF program actually an attempt to advance gun-control efforts by an administration that has blamed Mexican violence on easy access to U.S. weapons? If "Operation Fast and Furious" was merely a botched attempt at law enforcement, why was a supervisor of the operation, David Voth, "jovial, if not, not giddy but just delighted about" marked guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico, as career Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Dodson told Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee? Perhaps because all was going as planned...

This leaves Illinois as the only state without any legal concealed carry legislation, and a few states that need seriously improved laws(New York, New Jersey, California, Hawaii, and a couple of others). The GOP-controlled Assembly approved the bill on a bipartisan vote of 68-27. The Senate backed the bill last week on a 25-8 vote, and the measure now goes to Walker, who supports it, for his signature. Wisconsin would become the 49th state to legalize the carrying of concealed guns. The legislation would require those who want to carry concealed firearms to obtain permits. It would allow people to...

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives sting operation named Project Gunrunner passed so many guns to border-crossing smugglers as bait to snag high-level Mexican drug cartel leaders — instead of intercepting them as intended — that one was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December. Project Gunrunner had been whitewashed by a 152-page Justice Department Inspector General Review in November, before the Terry murder. But when bloggers including National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea publicly exposed Project Gunrunner and its successor, Operation Fast and Furious, it delivered swift results. Immediately, half a dozen...

Gun Control: Under a program run by the Justice Department, weapons were knowingly sold to criminals suspected of links to Mexican drug cartels, with two guns ending up at the murder scene of a border patrol agent. Considering how this administration has made a cause celebre out of gun control, the revelation of a program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), in which weapons were transferred on purpose to Mexican drug cartels and criminals and then lost track of, is at best embarrassing and at worst an unconscionable dereliction of duty. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton...

Self-Defense: Illinois' attorney general wants to publish the state's list of gun-owners, placing the lives and safety of non-gun-owners at risk. It's a list for criminals of the best potential victims. The anti-gun lobby has sought to impose what it calls "sensible restrictions" on gun ownership ever since Otis McDonald, a 76-year-old Army veteran who lives in a high crime area of Chicago, won his case before the U.S. Supreme Court saying the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution he fought to protect gives him the right to bear arms. These restrictions vary from training and education requirements to waiting...

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Thousands of weapons enthusiasts, many openly packing heat, crammed into an Arizona gun show chock full of high-powered rifles and semiautomatic pistols yesterday -- a mere 13 miles away from last weekend's rampage. Despite the 4,500 who filed into the Crossroads of the West Gun Show at the Pima County Fairgrounds throughout the day, a donation box at the entrance for the six dead and 13 wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, sat nearly empty. The audacious showing came as Giffords continued her miraculous recovery, with doctors removing her ventilator by inserting a tube in her windpipe to...

PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- They are questions dominating national headlines. Should gun laws change to make it harder for the mentally ill to buy weapons? If so, then how? Those questions, of course, stemming from last week's shooting spree in Tucson, which left six dead while injuring many, including Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. "I think each state should have their own way when it comes to individual rights, second amendment rights," said Sen. Scott Brown. Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown admits the Arizona shooting spree should prompt states to revisit gun control law. But he fell short of saying the federal government...

The one thing you find in the debate about gun control is that there really is a gun culture. And an anti-gun culture. The anti-gun culture probably is never going to agree with the gun culture, because the two cannot see eye to eye. The people on one side owns guns. They've fired guns. They understand how guns feel, how they work, what they can and can't do. They know from experience that a gun, properly stored and handled, isn't dangerous. The other side: Sort of metrosexual. Unwilling to take their own security seriously. The anti-gun culture doesn't fear guns...

Immediately after Saturday's shooting in Tucson, it looked as though Congress might be considering stricter gun laws. At six days out, though, a consensus seems to be forming that gun regulation will get no tighter as a result of the shooting--and if anything, it may become more permissive. A common argument is that if more bystanders had been armed at the Tucson Safeway this week, Jared Loughner might have been stopped earlier, and lives might have been saved. Here are some assessments of the political climate at week's end, and a few of the responses: (snip) In AZ, Get Ready...

Sarah Palin will be the keynote speaker at a huge convention of hunters later this month, organizers announced on Friday. The former vice presidential candidate and possible 2012 presidential hopeful is headed to Safari Club International’s convention later this month in Reno, Nev. - one of the key early presidential primary states. Organizers made the announcement that Palin would be appearing at the gun-related gathering less than a week after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that badly injured her and left six dead. Palin is scheduled to keynote the pro-hunting group’s huge annual meeting on Jan. 29 - 20,000...

Does the Tucson, Ariz., massacre justify tighter gun control? Don't be silly. Second Amendment advocates never look at mass shootings that way. For every nut job wreaking mayhem with a semiautomatic weapon, there's a citizen with a firearm who could have stopped him. Look at the 1991 slaughter in Killeen, Texas, where 23 people died in a restaurant while a patron's handgun, thanks to a dumb law, was left outside in her car. Look at the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, where 32 people died because under the university's naïve policy, nobody in the invaded classrooms was allowed to carry a...

One of the fiercest gun-control advocates in Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson Sunday, promising to introduce legislation as soon as Monday. McCarthy ran for Congress after her husband was gunned down and her son seriously injured in a shooting in 1993 on a Long Island commuter train. Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a...

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Many South Carolina gun owners will be closely watching a bill that will come before the state Legislature in the new year. Sen. Lee Bright, of Spartanburg, filed a bill that would bring authority over gun rights and regulations to South Carolina rather than the federal government. The South Carolina Firearms Freedom Act would ensure that firearms manufactured in South Carolina, that stay in South Carolina, will not have to be federally regulated. "The state law will still be observed," Bright said. "We're not saying there shouldn't be any kind of regulation. We're just saying that it...

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is moving to require federally licensed firearms retailers to report multiple sales of modern sporting rifles beginning January 5, 2011. Specifically, the ATF requirement calls for firearms retailers to report multiple sales, or other dispositions, of two or more .22 caliber or larger semi-automatic rifles that are capable of accepting a detachable magazine and are purchased by the same individual within five consecutive business days.

MISSOULA, MONT. --(Ammoland.com)- Plaintiffs in litigation to validate the principles of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA) have appealed an expected but adverse federal district court decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The plaintiffs in MSSA v. Holder include the Montana Shooting Sports Association (MSSA), the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and MSSA President Gary Marbut of Missoula. The MFFA is designed to test the power of Congress to regulate everything without limits under the narrow power given to Congress in the Constitution to “regulate commerce … among the states.” The MFFA declares that any firearms, ammunition and firearm...

The case of a New Jersey man who is serving seven years in prison for possessing two locked and unloaded handguns he purchased legally in Colorado is a perfect example of how a law-abiding citizen can unwittingly become a criminal due to vastly differing gun laws among the states, gun rights experts say. Brian Aitken, a 27-year-old entrepreneur and media consultant with no prior criminal record, now spends his days "bored and depressed" behind bars at New Jersey's Mid-State Correctional Facility, his father, Larry Aitken, of Mount Laurel, N.J., says.

Self-Protection: Pennsylvania's governor vetoes a bill expanding a citizen's right to protect self and family outside one's residence rather than exercise a "duty to retreat." It is a victory for predators over victims. On Saturday, while people were still sleeping off their turkey feast or celebrating their Black Friday goodies, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell vetoed a bill that would have expanded the state's so-called Castle Doctrine to expand the permissible use of deadly force in self-defense outside of the currently allowed home and workplace. The Castle Doctrine gets its name from the saying that a man's home is his "castle."...

Gander Mountain is having a Thanksgiving weekend special on Remington UMC 9mm Luger ammo. Went in this morning to purchase ... and the guy at the counter asked for my pistol permit. Huh? Never before have I been asked for a pistol permit in order to purchase ammo. I live just over the state line in New Jersey, and getting a pistol permit here is generally about a 30-day effort. So I'll miss this sale. Is this a new law in New York? I never encountered this situation before.

HELENA, Mont. -- A federal judge in Missoula is dismissing a lawsuit launched by gun rights advocates and states seeking freedom from federal gun laws. The decision from U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy was expected since his magistrate a month ago recommended tossing out the lawsuit.

This Bureau of Justice Assistance (U.S. Department of Justice) document is entitled "Investigating Terrorism and Criminal Extremism - Terms and Concepts” and includes a reference to GOA, a gun rights lobbying organization. I have seen GOA mentioned on threads here, but I am not personally familiar with GOA. I believe that the right to self defense is a God given right. The Constitution should protect "the right to keep and bear arms" (firearms and other weapons usable for self defense), but that right is currently being "infringed" at all levels of government.

Regulation: The U.S. Supreme Court says Americans have an individual right to keep and bear arms. The EPA says the bullets for those guns may be banned as an environmental hazard. The endless power grabs by the federal leviathan know no boundaries of law, science or even common sense. The Environmental Protection Agency of Lisa Jackson is seriously considering a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity, a leading anti-hunting group, to ban all traditional lead ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) of 1976. If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a ban on all...

Gun Was Not Registered With City CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) ― Chicago firefighter Salvatore Cheversia was arrested and charged with a felony for having a gun in his car that was not registered with the city. Chicago Police A man police say is a Chicago firefighter was ordered held on $25,000 bond on Wednesday after being charged with allegedly having a loaded revolver in his vehicle Tuesday night on the Southwest Side. Salvadore A. Cheversia, 23, of the 2000 block of North Mozart Street, was charged late Wednesday with felony unlawful use of a weapon, police said. He was also...

Away back in March, I predicted that if Obamacare passed, we citizens would eventually foot the bill for homeopathic treatments. This evidence for this forecast was inductive, in two parts. The first was that rumors were had that homeopathic language was written into the bill (yes, in more ways than one). These vague insinuations could not then be pinned down, mostly because the bill was so long that our betters in Congress never bothered to read it to explain it to us. The Senate had also previously meddled with the NIH to force it to pay attention to complimentary treatments....

BELLEVUE, Wash., July 29 -- /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Second Amendment Foundation and a Baltimore County, MD man today sued Maryland authorities in federal court because the man's handgun permit renewal was turned down on the grounds that he could not demonstrate "a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger." Read more: http://www.sunherald.com/2010/07/29/2367852/saf-sues-in-maryland-over-handgun.html#ixzz0v6Jz2IeU

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683 NRA-Backed "Protecting Gun Owners in Bankruptcy Act of 2010" Passes U.S. House Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Fairfax, Va. -- Today, by a margin of 307-113, a bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to amend the federal definition of protected “household goods” to include firearms on the list of items that cannot be seized by creditors in a bankruptcy proceeding. NRA-supported H.R. 5827, offered by U.S. Representative John Boccieri (OH-16), would ensure that a person who files for bankruptcy would not lose the constitutionally- protected means of protecting themselves and...

Where was our news media? Where was our president and congress? Why does the official move from Washington go against American private citizens and their guns, and not an all out war against the drug cartels using fully automatic military weapons, hand grenades, launchers and machine-guns? Why is the president pushing for an international gun law that will bring registration and finally gun control to we American citizens? Who is for free and lawful American citizens? Where are our statesmen? Where are our patriots and where are champions for the Constitution and freedom and safety of American citizens? This is...

Second Amendment: In the "living Constitution" era, the Supreme Court rediscovers original intent and rightly rules that the right to bear arms applies to all Americans just as the rest of the Bill of Rights does. It's hard to conceive how the justices could have decided otherwise. But by the narrowest of margins — 5-4 — they have reaffirmed that keeping and bearing arms is an inalienable and individual right like speech and religion, and that it applies to all individuals as the Founding Fathers intended. Why anyone thinks the Second Amendment does not apply to all Americans is a...

Second Amendment: Chicago is deciding whether to prosecute a great-grandfather and Korean War veteran under its handgun ban. He refused to be a victim, and now there's one less armed thug roaming the streets. What's the problem? If the 80-year-old vet living on the city's West Side didn't have the gun the city said he shouldn't have, he and his 83-year-old wife and 12-year-old great-grandson might have joined those victims of gun violence about whom gun-control advocates constantly chirp. The vet obtained the gun in violation of the city's handgun ban after a prior incident in which the couple was...

Gun Rights: Not happy with interfering in our internal affairs by savaging Arizona's new immigration law, the president of Mexico wants to shred our Second Amendment too. And the mayor of Chicago wants to help. There stood Mexican President Felipe Calderon before Congress, blaming America for the violence on his side of the border and, among other things, the guns that fuel the Mexican drug war that has claimed more than 23,000 Mexican lives since he took office in 2006. Rather than taking responsibility himself, he shoved the blame on America. It would all stop, he implied, if America would...

The federal government is arguing in a gun-rights case pending in federal court in Montana that state plans to exempt in-state guns from various federal requirements themselves make the laws void, because the growing movement certainly would impact "interstate commerce." The government continues to argue to the court that the Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution should be the guiding rule for the coming decision. The argument plays down the significance of both the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the 10th Amendment provision that reserves to states all prerogatives not specifically granted the federal government in the Constitution....

HELENA, Mont. -- The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence is joining the federal government's fight to stop states that want to exempt themselves from national gun control laws, arguing the effort threatens public safety.The gun control advocates and the U.S. Department of Justice both filed new arguments Tuesday in the ongoing legal battle over federal gun control and states rights.The issue was sparked with the "firearm freedoms act" first enacted in Montana last year and subsequently in several other states, and is leading to a constitutional showdown over the reach of Congress into state borders.The states argue they should...

Dear fellow patriot,With willing one-world accomplices in Washington, D.C., gun-grabbers around the globe believe they have it made.In fact, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just announced the Obama Administration would be working hand in glove with the UN to pass a new “Small Arms Treaty.” This is Congressman Paul Broun from Georgia.I’m writing you to make sure American citizens are prepared to oppose this assault on our national sovereignty and right to keep and bear arms.Disguised as legislation to help in the fight against “terrorism,” “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates,” the UN’s Small Arms Treaty is nothing more than a...

OKLAHOMA CITY — Gov. Brad Henry on Tuesday vetoed a bill to exempt Oklahoma-made guns and ammunition from federal regulations, saying the measure would make it easier for criminals to obtain weapons and endanger citizens and law enforcement. Similar to laws passed in at least four other states, the "Oklahoma Firearms Freedom Act" states that firearms, gun accessories or ammunition produced in Oklahoma would not be subject to interstate commerce laws and federal regulations if the items remain in the state. The bill does not apply to certain large firearms and exploding ammunition. "I'm a strong supporter of the Second...

Governor Jan Brewer (R) today signed HB2307, Arizona's version of the Firearms Freedom Act, making Arizona the sixth state, behind Montana and Tennessee, who passed theirs in 2009, and Wyoming, Utah, and South Dakota which did so earlier this year.For those not familiar, the FFA is a Tenth Amendment as much as a gun rights issue, declaring firearms and accessories manufactured, sold and used within the state to be beyond the reach of federal regulation.After Montana and Tennessee had the audacity last year to pass legislation after actually having read the Constitution, the ATF sent a letter to FFL's in...

(GunReports.com)--A report from a national coalition of mayors urges President Obama to adopt dozens of gun registration and confiscation measures, including the creation of a federal interstate firearms trafficking unit. After months of waiting in vain for gun control supporters in Congress to take aggressive action against semi-automatic firearms, gun shows and NRA-supported restrictions on the abuse of instant background check records and firearm trace information, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is urging President Obama to make 40 changes to federal gun law interpretation and enforcement on his own-without congressional approval. Bloomberg conveyed his recommendations to the president through...

2 years in jail also possible for agent enforcing U.S. regulations on firearm Wyoming has joined a growing list of states with self-declared exemptions from federal gun regulation of weapons made, bought and used inside state borders – but lawmakers in the Cowboy State have taken the issue one step further, adopting significant penalties for federal agents attempting to enforce Washington's rules. According to a law signed into effect yesterday by Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal, any agent of the U.S. who "enforces or attempts to enforce" federal gun rules on a "personal firearm" in Wyoming faces a felony conviction and...

South Dakota --(AmmoLand.com)- The South Dakota Legislature has passed the South Dakota Firearms Freedom Act and that bill is enroute to the Governor’s desk. Governor Michael Rounds has indicated that he’s comfortable with the SDFFA and will sign the bill when it reaches his office. SD will make the fourth state that has enacted a clone of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act. Once the Wyoming and South Dakota governors sign their respective bills into law, they will join Montana, Tennessee and Utah with enacted laws.

The Supremes are considering another 2nd amendment case which might have far reaching consequences (in a good way) on this particular battle front. George Will has a good column this week which takes a look at the history of the fight and what the implications of McDonald v Chicago might be. It probably will result in a routine ruling that extends a 2008 decision and renders dubious many state and local gun-control laws. What could — but, judging from the justices’ remarks during oral argument, probably will not — make the ruling momentous would be the court deciding that the...

I am dismayed that the City of Chicago's ban on handguns may be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The second amendment to the Bill of Rights reads as follows: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. The amendment talks about a well-regulated militia and thus, it would seem that the right to bear arms is directly related to a militia. In other words, those serving in a militia - or in the present - a branch of the Armed...