Free Republic

Those looking to buy firearms after the Supreme Court ruling against the District of Columbia's gun ban are out of luck. Purchasing regulations have yet to be written. Days after the Supreme Court ruled that residents of the nation's capital can keep handguns at home for self-defense, George Harley walked out of a Maryland gun shop disheartened, his goal of legally having a gun to protect his family put on hold. Since before Harley, 30, was born, the District of Columbia has restricted its residents' ownership of handguns. After the high court's ruling was handed down late last month, Harley...

1 shot to death, 1 injured in South Side drive-by Tribune staff report 7:54 AM CDT, July 5, 2008 A second man shot as he sat in a vehicle on Chicago's South Side late Thursday has died. Martin Hoard, 29, of the 6000 block of South Indiana Ave., died at Stroger Hospital following the shooting. He was parked in the 6700 block of South State Street when a car pulled up about 10:50 p.m. and fired shots into their vehicle, said Officer Amina Greer, a police spokeswoman. John Duncan, 22, of the 8000 block of South Paulina Street, was pronounced...

Well, well, they just couldn’t leave well enough alone. In her latest attack on Joe Horn, the law abiding citizen that protected his neighbor’s home and his neighborhood’s peace and security, Lisa Falkenberg ends her column:The little old man from Pasadena gunned down two men like dogs. That is outrageous and she should be fired.Opinion is one thing. Baseless statements like that are slanderous and have no place in a serious newspaper. Joe Horn didn’t wake up one day wanting to shoot anyone. Two criminals broke into his neighbor’s home and then ran towards him as he was pointing a...

"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." Because of the inclusion of the M-word (militia), gun-control advocates have long argued that the Second Amendment applies to militia, but not to individual citizens. Last week, the Supreme Court put an end to that nonsense when it issued a decision overturning the District of Columbia's 32-year old ban on handguns - even in citizens' own homes. In the 5-4 decision, Justice Antonin Scalia hailed "the right of law-abiding citizens to use arms in...

A Right Without Principle is No Right There has naturally been a lot of discussion about the recent Supreme Court ruling in the "District of Columbia versus Heller" case that is believed to clearly uphold the view that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of individual's to keep and bear arms. While those who understand the importance of that right are celebrating this decision, it is unfortunately not as unambiguous as it might at first seem. That ambiguity is obvious in many of the comments that have been made by various commentators about the decision, and their...

Barack Obama may be getting a pass from the National Media on virtually every issue, but he's not going to get a pass from the National Rifle Association (NRA) on the issue of 2nd Amendment Rights. The NRA is planning a $40 million campaign this fall to make sure Americans know that 2nd Amendment Rights will be in jeopardy if Barack Obama is elected President. Jonathan Martin has the details in these excerpts from a report out today at Politico.com . . .

'Castle Doctrine' Gives Texans Unprecedented Authority to Take Action Against Intruders A Texas man who shot and killed two men he believed to be burglarizing his neighbor's home won't be going to trial. A grand jury today failed to indict Joe Horn, a 61-year-old computer technician who lives in an affluent subdivision in Pasadena, Texas.In the Lone Star state, where the six-gun tamed the frontier, shooting bad guys is a time-honored tradition, and Horn's case centered on a Texas state law based on the old idea that "a man's home is his castle." The "castle law" gives Texans unprecedented legal...

Moon Says No Longer Possible For Police To Protect Citizens General Sessions Court Judge Bob Moon said Friday that crime in Chattanooga "has become so rampant that it is no longer possible for the police department to protect our citizens." He told a woman who had been pulled from her car and beaten in the head that she or her mother needed to "purchase a weapon, obtain a gun permit and learn to protect yourself." The woman moved back in with her mother after the May 4 incident on E. 17th Street. Judge Moon said, "The U.S. Supreme Court has...

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C. Democrat. Mrs. Norton, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University, based her comments in part on the narrowness of the ruling that gave D.C. residents the right to have handguns in their homes for protection, but "did not uphold an individual's right to have a gun at will."

For 30 years D.C. was ruled by liberals who thought they were better and smarter than the Founding Fathers. Justice Scalia told them otherwise, and D.C. residents are heading to the gun shops for some shiny new pistols. D.C. Officials are panicking.

With cities' options limited, lawmakers need to face up to limiting the gun trade - A sharply divided Supreme Court has settled the issue for now. The Second Amendment to the Constitution does confer upon individuals the right to bear arms.In the wake of the ruling, big-city mayors across the country are expressing alarm that their gun-control ordinances will be set aside, unleashing a new wave of urban gun violence. That may be an exaggeration. Local gun ordinances have had limited impact. As crime statistics show, gun violence is often most prevalent in cities with the most restrictive gun laws.That's...

Early in World War II, Japan considered invading the mainland of the United States. Admiral Isoroku Yamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese naval forces and architect of the Pearl Harbor bombing, advised against invading. Twenty years prior, Admiral Yamoto had spent a few years in the United States studying at Harvard University. Based on his experience with American culture, Admiral Yamoto reportedly told his government, “I would never invade the United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” Admiral Yamoto’s observation speaks to the heart of America’s uniqueness. The Admiral observed, in essence, that America...

This year, about 12,000 Americans will be shot to death. It's a staggering figure, and even though lawmakers have continued to pass gun-control laws to try to bring the number down, they have not significantly reduced the murder rate. Indeed, for the last decade, guns have steadily remained the cause of about two-thirds of all homicides. Gun manufacturers insist that these deaths are not their fault, preferring to pin the blame on criminals and irresponsible dealers. They have fiercely resisted even minimal restrictions on sales and have simultaneously washed their hands of responsibility for this "collateral damage." On Thursday, the...

I have never posted a vanity, so I hope I did this correctly - I'd like to propost that every year, June 26 be recognized by lovers of freedom everywhere as "Heller Day." We could all gather our loved ones for a day of target practice and have a barbecue or something. Let's all remember the day that the Supreme Court declared the obvious: we have an individual right to bear arms.

Bang! Bang!... Bambi Gunned Down on YouTube Which is it senator? Are you for the DC gun ban?... Or, are you against the DC gun ban? ...For or against?

LATIMER --A Biloxi teen is accused of impersonating a police officer when he tried to stop a Latimer resident on Allie Byrd Road, according to Jackson County Sheriff's Department reports. Brennon Foster Quade, 18, of Holly Hills Drive, was arrested about 11:45 p.m. Tuesday at the home of the victim's parents in the Latimer community. -----SNIP----- When Quade stopped, the victim's father said he dialed 911 and held a gun on Quade until sheriff's deputies got there.

The 2008 Supreme Court term ended with a bang yesterday as the Justices issued their most important ruling ever in upholding an individual right to bear arms. The dismaying surprise is that the Second Amendment came within a single vote of becoming a dead Constitutional letter. That's the larger meaning of yesterday's landmark 5-4 ruling in D.C. v. Heller, the first gun control case to come before the Court in 70 years. Richard Heller brought his case after the Washington, D.C. government refused to grant him a permit to keep a handgun in his home. The District has some of...

Within minutes of the Supreme Court ruling overturning the District's gun ban, leaders of the National Rifle Association began work on legal challenges against gun restrictions in Chicago and San Francisco, while gun-control groups said the decision would only strengthen their efforts. Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which fought in support of the city's handgun ban, predicted that the decision would "embolden criminal defendants, and ideological extremists, to file new legal attacks on existing gun laws." "With the help of the Brady Center's legal team, those attacks can, and must, be successfully resisted in...

Go to minute 2:40 through 4:59 on the link above. She also said that thugs "will have a jump on you". D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's comments are absurd and idiotic. Actually, "idiotic" is putting it mildly. This is an interview she did last evening with 630 WMAL, Washington, D.C.

By E. J. Dionne WASHINGTON -- In knocking down the District of Columbia's 32-year ban on handgun possession, the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court have shown again their willingness to abandon precedent in order to do whatever is necessary to further the agenda of the contemporary political right. The court's five most conservative members have demonstrated that for all of Justice Antonin Scalia's talk about "originalism" as a coherent constitutional doctrine, the judicial right regularly succumbs to the temptation to legislate from the bench. They fall in line behind whatever fashions political conservatism is promoting. Conservative justices claim that...

"So Wrong, So Often, For So Long..." I'm slackjawed. The Supremes have actually found a right that exists in the Constitution! For decades they have been adept on finding "rights" where none existed in this document, and denied real rights when they existed in black and white. As Boston T. Party would say, "Hold off on the party balloons." This decision by the court was not a compete vindication of the 2nd Amendment, but a cleverly crafted piece not in line with the other famous 1939 2nd Amendment case, U.S. vs. Miller. The upshot of that decision was that any...

Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year — on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall. The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die senselessly with its wrongheaded and dangerous ruling striking down key parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court precedent, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms for nonmilitary uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a “militia.” The ruling will...

Liberals, who hate guns almost as much as they hate cars, got a well-deserved lesson in Second Amendment rights when the Supreme Court spit in their face by ruling that the Constitution really does guarantee the right of Americans to own guns. The ruling, which struck down the District of Columbia’s laws almost totally restricting handgun ownership, affirmed the traditional view that the Second Amendment means exactly what it says when it guarantees "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." The avid gun-grabbers have long insisted that the accompanying clause, “A well regulated militia being necessary to...

The Supreme Court's invalidation of the District of Columbia's handgun ban powerfully shows that the conservative rhetoric about judicial restraint is a lie. In striking down the law, Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion, joined by the court's four other most conservative justices, is quite activist in pursuing the conservative political agenda of protecting gun owners. If the terms "judicial activism" and "judicial restraint" have any meaning, it is that a court is activist when it is invalidating laws and overruling precedent, and restrained when deferring to popularly elected legislatures and following prior decisions. Never before had the Supreme Court found...

Actually, Obama's writing was on the 1996 document, which was filed when Obama was running for the Illinois state Senate. A Chicago nonprofit, Independent Voters of Illinois, had this question, and Obama took hard line: 35. Do you support state legislation to: a. ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns? Yes. b. ban assault weapons? Yes. c. mandatory waiting periods and background checks? Yes. Q: You said recently, "I have no intention of taking away folks' guns." But you support the D.C. handgun ban, and you've said that it's constitutional. How do you reconcile those two positions? A: Because...

As I swab down one of my hundreds of privately owned, individually possessed firearms again this fine morning, I snicker and shake my head in disbelief that there are four "justices" on the "supreme" court that do not believe Americans have individual rights. Sure, I am somewhat pleased that we now have a SCOTUS confirmation of the self-evident truth and God given individual right to keep and bear arms, but the 5-4 ruling is another painful example, like Guantanamo and the decree against the death penalty for child rapist decisions that indicate a divisive culture war raging on, and four...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declared for the first time on Thursday that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to have a gun, not just the right of the states to maintain militias. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nation’s capital went too far by making it nearly impossible to own a handgun.... The National Rifle Association and other supporters of rights to...

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained that the sorts of weapons protected were those "in common use at the time." 307 U.S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting carrying of "dangerous and unusual weapons." It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service - M-16 rifles and the like - may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception...

Here is video of Sen. John McCain on his campaign bus conducting an impromptu press conference with reporters. He comments on the Supreme Court decision striking down the D.C. Gun Ban and hits Barack Obama for his changing positions on the issue. . . . (see video)

Great job Kevin! Defending the 5 Justices that would not allow the liberals to strip us of our right to bear arms to protect ourselves.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s historic decision on the right to bear arms on Thursday was a sweeping pronouncement of constitutional principles that will nonetheless have little practical impact in most of the country, legal experts said. Most state and city gun restrictions appear to be allowed under the ruling, which appears to permit licensing laws, bans on possession by felons or the mentally ill, and prohibitions against carrying concealed weapons or guns in schools or government buildings. Justice Antonin Scalia said that list was not exhaustive. “Dangerous” weapons can also be banned, although the term was not defined. But...

Here is Barack Obama's reaction today to the Supreme Court decision which struck down the D.C. Gun Ban and upheld 2nd Amendment Rights. Obama's statement is clearly politically calculated to minimize his being on the wrong side of this issue. Obama claims to have "consistently" supported the 2nd Amendment as an individual right . . . (see video) But listen to what Obama was saying just this past February about the D.C. Gun Ban . . . (see video)

There's one group of District residents absolutely unfazed by today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling shooting down the District's strict handgun ban: the dudes who have been blowing away their fellow citizens with abandon since the law was put on the books 32 years ago. Operating under the notion that it's better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission, our shooters long ago decided not to wait for the high court's thoughts on the matter. They simply arrogated to themselves the right to keep and bear arms and, with that right, license to shoot and kill, with impunity, whatever and whenever...

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 (conservative to liberal) decision that the right for American citizens to keep and bear arms is in fact Constitutionally granted. Conservative and Liberal Justices have argued over the Constitutional interpretation of the 2nd Amendment for years. Conservatives have argued that the 2nd Amendment states that the right to keep and bear arms is a Constitutionally guaranteed right. Whereas Liberals have stated that it was meant to be used by militia only. Justice Scalia wrote the Majority Opinion for the court stating that it was evident that the "historic narrative"...

Obama's campaign issued a statement this morning, before the Supreme Court overruled the D.C. gun ban as unconstitutional. He said this morning that he thought the ban was unconstitutional. Seems that they want to correct an "inartful" answer that was given a mere 7 months ago. This morning's statement. With the Supreme Court poised to rule on Washington, D.C.'s, gun ban, the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an "inartful" statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional. "That statement was obviously...

St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's officials say over $150,000 in weapons has been seized from a Slidell home. Investigators say they learned of the massive weapons cache after a man called them to report over $70,000 in weapons was stolen from his home. That prompted authorities to secure a search warrant for the home, which turned up some 50 additional weapons, ranging from semi-automatic pistols to a .50 caliber semi-automatic bolt action sniper rifle. "When the deputies responded to take the burglarly report, they became suspicious at how he was reporting the crime," said St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain. "As...

The tyranny of the liberals was almost complete. ONE MORE VOTE and they would be confiscating our guns. After that, they could have done whatever they wanted and an unarmed population of sheep could have done nothing about it. We know what our Founding Fathers did about that kind of tyranny.

ABC News' Teddy Davis and Alexa Ainsworth Report: With the Supreme Court poised to rule on Washington, D.C.'s, gun ban, the Obama campaign is disavowing what it calls an "inartful" statement to the Chicago Tribune last year in which an unnamed aide characterized Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as believing that the DC ban was constitutional. "That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position," Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News. The statement which Burton describes as an inaccurate representation of the senator's views was made to the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 20, 2007. In a...

I have not read much beyond that the SC struck this down but my first question is - can I now drive through DC with a hand-gun?

The U.S. Supreme Court today did not release its long-awaited ruling on whether the District's handgun ban violates the Second Amendment. That means the potentially landmark decision will almost certainly come tomorrow morning when the court is planning to issue the last of its rulings for the term............."

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on whether Washington, D.C.'s decades-old handgun ban is constitutional. It's been nearly 70 years since the high court has heard a firearms case that tests the scope of the Second Amendment. The outcome of this one, D.C. v. Heller, will have extraordinary implications —- not just for the District, but for the ability of cities to respond effectively to gun violence. If more evidence is needed that the stakes could not be higher, a steady drumbeat of headlines is supplying it. In the first few days of March alone, just before the justices...

...beginning at 10 a.m. Eastern, we will provide “live” coverage of the Court’s public session, during which the Justices are expected to issue at least one of the seven opinions remaining this term.

Mayor John Hickenlooper promised Denver won't experience another "Summer of Violence" and vowed Monday to crack down on criminals who wield weapons after two unrelated weekend shootings shocked the city. "If you use a gun in Denver, we're going to do everything we can to put you behind bars as long as we can," the mayor said at a news conference flanked by Police Chief Gerry Whitman and District Attorney Mitch Morrissey. Police identified Mark Tabullo- Zuniga, 23, as the gunman who died in a confrontation with police early Sunday in a parking lot at 18th and Market streets. Andres...

home invasion suspects (3 caught) may be mexican military or police they may have been trying to ambush phx police the home invasion killed one, drug trade suspected at least one person, in full-body armor and up to three (3) still on the loose

The high court keeps America waiting a few more days 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. What do those words really mean? What did they mean when they were ratified as the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? What do they mean today?

UNION CITY, Ga. -- A 16-year-old home invasion suspect is recovering from gunshot wounds after a Union City man said the teen kicked in the back door of his townhome Saturday. The 28-year-old homeowner said the teen rang the doorbell, but when no one answered, the suspect went around to the back of the townhouse. Police said the resident got his gun and shot the teen in the shoulder after the suspect kicked in the back door and entered the home. Police said the homeowner then chased the suspect through a nearby wooded area.

WHEN IT comes to a city plan to keep concealed weapons from public places, Felix Arena, proud gun owner, has a few thoughts. First, he says, state law gives him the right to carry concealed firearms with a permit. So what gives Seattle the gumption to trump that? Second, he says, the plan would be hard to enforce unless the city wants airportlike security in parks and other properties. Wands and metal detectors cost money and are a hassle for crowds. Third: "It's just bulls - - -," Arena summed up during a break from his checker job at a...

On Monday, June 16, Governor Mark Sanford (R) signed H 3212, the Right-to-Carry reciprocity bill. In spite of an extremely crowded legislative schedule, the South Carolina House and Senate came to terms on a bill that will extend gun rights, not only for citizens of the Palmetto State, but for visitors to South Carolina as well.

...In 1976, Washington became the first major American city to ban handguns. But since that day, handgun technology has changed dramatically. In fact, the editor of Shooting Sports Retailer, a gun industry magazine, observed in 1997: "Firepower is increasing. So is the killing potential as guns shrink in size and concealability." We hope the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will take that fact into account when they decide this month whether the District's handgun ban is constitutional. Here in Philadelphia, the deadly shift can be measured by the rate of violence in 2006, which resulted in more than 2,000...