Free Republic

Gun-control advocates are noticeably silent when crime rates decline. Their multimillion-dollar lobbying efforts are designed to manufacture mass anxiety that every gun owner is a potential killer. The statistics show otherwise. Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that violent crime decreased 4 percent in 2011. The number of murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults all went down, continuing a pattern. “This is not a one-year anomaly, but a steady decline in the FBI’s violent-crime rates,” said Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association. “It would be disingenuous for anyone to not credit increased self-defense laws to...

RIVERDALE | For village President Deyon Dean, Saturday was a day of conflict. Dean said he sympathizes with the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Michael Pfleger and their outrage about urban violence and the amount of firearms on the streets of Chicago, but he wishes they had picked a different place to express their anger. The two outspoken South Side clergymen chose to lead dozens of people in picketing Saturday afternoon outside Chuck’s Gun Shop, 14310 S. Indiana Ave. The shop, at nearly 50 years, is one of the village's oldest businesses. “They have been a good business for Riverdale. They...

Attorney General Eric Holder agreed to meet with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Tuesday as part of his attempt to stave off a vote to hold him in contempt of Congress. In a letter to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent on Monday, Holder proposed the meeting in order to discuss the role of the Justice Department in the botched gun-tracking operation, Fast and Furious. He also suggested having Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of Issa’s panel, and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, attend the 11 a.m....

Finally, Eric Holder is on the ropes. House members are readying to vote him in contempt of Congress. Senators wonder aloud whether he can be trusted to investigate White House leaks that have exposed inside information about some of our most successful antiterror operations to some of our most dangerous enemies. Alas, the old bulls of the Senate—including Republicans John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley, along with Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman—are calling for the one thing that might derail the accountability train: a special prosecutor. It all makes for the perfect tea party moment, an opportunity to make one...

Winnebago County's circuit judges responded Monday to an effort by the district attorney there to wear his gun to work in the courthouse. The judges in January banned anyone but on-duty law enforcement officers from carrying a gun in the courthouse without written permission of the judge or court commissioner in front of whom the applicant will appear. District Attorney Christian Gossett and Deputy DA Scott Ceman, in a Monday petition to the Supreme Court, claim the orders exceed the judges' authority and contradict the state's concealed carry law which Gossett and Ceman claim specifically exempts prosecutors from the general...

The National Border Patrol Council — the union that represents Border Patrol agents around the country — demanded Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation over Operation Fast and Furious on Monday. According to the Arizona Daily Star, the union deliberated for over a year before making this call for Holder to step down. “This is something that all of our guys are concerned about, because they know it could be any one of them,” Shawn Moran, a union vice president, said according to the Arizona paper. “We take the risks that are out there naturally just being in law enforcement working...

If you're still under the impression that "Fast and Furious" is a movie about car racing, then you probably haven't been paying attention to the even higher-octane showdown between House Oversight Committee Chairman Republican Darrell Issa and Attorney General Eric Holder. In the latest dramatic developments, Issa last week threatened a vote to hold the AG in contempt of congress for failing to cough up documents subpoenaed by the committee, a move Democrats blasted as "irresponsible, unprecedented, and contrary to the rule of law." Holder duly agreed to produce some of the documents, and Issa indicated a willingness to back...

GOP Rep. Darrell Issa warned Attorney General Eric Holder late Monday that if the Justice Department failed to turn over documents he is seeking, the California Republican will go ahead with a contempt vote against Holder as planned later this week. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has been battling with DOJ since last year over documents related to the failed Fast and Furious program. The two sides had seemed close to making a deal late last week, but Issa cautioned Holder that he will only delay the contempt vote — set for his panel on...

LAURENS COUNTY, S.C. -- Laurens County deputies say a woman who admitted to shooting her ex-husband will not be charged in the shooting because they believe she acted in self defense. According to the incident report, deputies were called out to a home on Vern Cora Road in Laurens Monday morning. Tammy Duvall told deputies she had a friend over at her house and was about to go outside when she heard a car door shut. Duvall told deputies she grabbed a gun and shot several times when she noticed her ex-husband, Roderick Woodruff, charging towards her. Deputies later found...

ORLANDO, Fla. – The former neighborhood watch volunteer who killed Trayvon Martin told his wife to buy bulletproof vests for them and for his attorney, according to jailhouse calls released Monday. "As uncomfortable as it is, I want you wearing one," George Zimmerman told his wife. Zimmerman was wearing a bulletproof vest when he left jail after posting bond. His attorney, Mark O'Mara, has reported receiving threats. The calls, released by prosecutors, also detail how Zimmerman instructed his wife to transfer money from bank accounts and could play a crucial role in his second bond hearing next week.

June 18,2012Issa to Holder: You have until Tuesday a.m. to give up Fast and Furious docs Matthew Boyle House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa told Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday that he has until Tuesday morning to produce Operation Fast and Furious documents or his committee will be voting to hold him in contempt of Congress on Wednesday. “[O]nly the delivery of documents outlined and offered by the Department of Justice last Thursday to staff will be sufficient to justify a postponement of Wednesday’s scheduled vote,” Issa wrote to Holder on Monday afternoon. “As the department has not...

At 7 a.m. on January 20, 2007, DEA agents battered down the door to Thomas and Rosalie Avina’s mobile home in Seeley, California, in search of suspected drug trafficker Louis Alvarez. Thomas Avina met the agents in his living room and told them they were making a mistake. Shouting “Don’t you *ucking move,” the agents forced Thomas Avina to the floor at gunpoint, and handcuffed him and his wife, who had been lying on a couch in the living room. As the officers made their way to the back of the house, where the Avina’s 11-year-old and 14-year-old daughters were...

The Washington Post just bestowed its “Worst Week in Washington” award on Attorney General Eric Holder, and it’s not hard to see why.Over the weekend, Senator Joe Lieberman, who caucuses with the Democrats, clearly expressed his lack of confidence in Holder by calling for a special counsel who is independent of the Justice Department to investigate serious leaks of national-security documents. Someone near the president is leaking classified information, and both Democrats and Republicans seem determined to find out who.But the real blow came last week, when Holder’s carefully constructed stone walls against House investigators started to crumble.Representative Darrell...

June 17, 2012 Sipsey Street Exclusive: The Strategic Communicator. "Tough Guy" Denis McDonough, "Obama’s single most influential foreign policy adviser" and the Fast & Furious Cover-up. Deconfliction is a military and engineering term that refers to the process of avoiding mutual interference, or outright hazards, among systems under the control of one's own sides. It is most often used in the context of preventing fratricide, or having weapons hit one's own troops, but it has broader implications. Denis McDonough, whose first official job with the Obama administration was Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication is now the Deputy National...

The National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 17,000 of the agency's nonsupervisory agents, called Monday for the resignation of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. for his role in the botched "Fast and Furious" gunrunning operation that resulted in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Council President George E. McCubbin III, a 25-year Border Patrol veteran, described Mr. Holder's actions in the case as "a slap in the face to all Border Patrol agents who serve this country," adding that the attorney general showed "an utter failure of leadership at the highest levels of government." Two semi-automatic...

“Obama announced a temporary, two-year reprieve for young immigrants who came to this country before age 16, who have lived here at least five years and who have clean records,” bostonherald.com reports. “The reprieve, which is renewable—” Wait. A renewable temporary reprieve? Anyone remember the executive order establishing the unconstitutional long gun registry for 8500 border state-dwelling gun dealers? Emergency > temporary > pilot > automatically renewed > you can’t kill it with a lawsuit. Under Emperor Obama’s unconstitutional edict, the newly reprieved illegals will not be citizens nor on a path to citizenship (nudge nudge wink wink). But will...

<p>The Washington Post recently reported on the first meeting of the legislative task force reviewing Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law, and the unchallenged lies start out in the first paragraph: “The parents of a 17-year-old teen killed by a neighborhood watch captain asked a task force reviewing Florida’s ‘stand your ground law’ Tuesday to recommend changing it so that defendants who initiate a confrontation can’t use it as part of their self-defense argument.” Traditionally one of the tasks of journalists is to check facts and verify information before presenting it to the public.</p>

A West Virginia man who claimed to be the victim of a drive-by shooting along a rural Montana highway while working on a memoir called “Kindness in America” has confessed to shooting himself, authorities said Friday. Valley County sheriff’s officials said they believe 39-year-old Ray Dolin shot himself as a desperate act of self-promotion, but they offered no further details.

Why do Liberals and Progressives want you Disarmed? Following the shooting of Treyvon Martin earlier this year, liberals and progressives renewed their calls for more restrictions on firearms and repeal of Florida’s stand your ground law. Some called for the out right ban of handguns. Once again their justification is so-called public safety because they claim the police are entrusted with duty of protecting you. As I wrote in “The Police are Under No Legal Obligation to Protect You”, this assertion is patently false because courts throughout these United States have consistently held that police have no legal duty to...

<p>SANFORD, Fla. – For weeks, the death of Trayvon Martin, the investigations it launched and the civil rights rallies it spurred were the most important news stories in the country, according to pollsters.</p> <p>At least six news organizations or polling companies did surveys. What they documented, in general, was that people were fascinated and outraged by the Feb. 26 death of the unarmed 17-year-old and angry at the shooter, Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman.</p>