Free Republic

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is reportedly preparing a new rule to regulate private gun sales, requiring background checks via the FBI. Empower Oversight, representing IRS agents in the Hunter Biden case, has raised concerns about the move, calling it an “unconstitutional” power grab. The group argues that only Congress has the authority to enact such changes due to a 1986 law prohibiting background checks for private firearm sales. “Such an expansive rule that treats all private citizens the same as federal firearms licensees would circumvent the separation of powers in the Constitution, which grants ‘all...

What kind of mind actually wants to kill something? What is wrong with the psyche of a man who looks at a lion, or a deer, or any sentient being and wants to kill it for no other reason than the sport of killing? ~ Tom Grasso, Elephant Journal Wayne LaPierre heads a rigid, macho National Rifle Association that represents much that is sick in America and in the Republican Party. The NRA has played into the astonishing insecurity and entitlement of white male supremacy, marketing guns as if they represent “freedom” and “independence.” The United States is awash in...

Wisconsin residents continue to seek and obtain licenses to carry concealed guns, submitting more than 37,000 applications in 2014, the third full year after concealed carry was approved, according to a report released Tuesday. Nearly 34,000 were issued permits, raising the total number in Wisconsin to 242,488, according to an annual report from the Department of Justice. More than 500 applications were rejected because the applicants were not legally qualified to carry a gun, much less have a concealed carry permit, according to the report. The reasons for rejection included applicants with a felony conviction, having been found mentally incompetent...

IN retrospect, it was not a good idea to have left his pistol at home. Called to the scene of a traffic accident in the Paris suburbs last Sunday, Jean-François Illy, a regional police chief, came face to face with a mob of immigrant youths armed with baseball bats, iron bars and shotguns. What happened next has sickened the nation. As Illy tried to reassure the gang that there would be an investigation into the deaths of two teenagers whose motorbike had just collided with a police car, he heard a voice shouting: “Somebody must pay for this. Some pigs...