Free Republic

It is ironic that in the country that invented gunpowder and possibly the first firearm, the “Fire Spear,” Communist China is complaining again that there are too many guns on Mainland China’s streets. Red Chinese officials have just announced another crackdown on private gun ownership there. Just like the perennial Five Year Plans in the Soviet Union, there have always been annual plans to catch Chinese who own firearms. Self defense there? Forget it. Its a country that is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of firearms, and where many guns wind up in the black market because of lax...

Dan Gross, the newly hired president of the Brady Campaign, counts the shooting of his brother Matt in 1997 at the Empire State Building as a seminal event in in his life. He may not call it that but he left a high paying partnership at JWT (formerly known as J. Walter Thompson Advertising) to start what eventually became the Center to Prevent Youth Violence. From his bio at the Brady Campaign: Dan founded CPYV after his brother was severely wounded in a shooting at the Empire State Building in February 1997. Prior to co-founding and directing the Center to...

New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker was so upset over dropping a crucial pass late in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 21-17 loss to the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, he nearly started crying at the podium. Welker isn't going to get any pity from quarterback Tom Brady's wife, Gisele Bundchen, though. After her prayers for a Patriots' championship went unanswered, Bunchen lashed out at the team's receiving corps for failing to haul in her husband's passes. While waiting for an elevator at Lucas Oil Stadium, Bundchen was being heckled by Giants fans when she spoke to people in...

Eli and Brady rematch? Two brothers? Give your predictions and make comments here.

A Connecticut Appellate Court recently issued an order dismissing an appeal in Gilland v. Sportsmen’s Outpost, Inc. – a Superior Court decision granting a firearm retailer’s motion to dismiss all claims against it pursuant to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (“PLCAA”). The PLCAA was passed in 2005 with broad bipartisan support. The purpose of the act is to prevent firearms manufacturers and retailers from being held liable for crimes committed with their products. In this case, the plaintiffs, who were represented by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, sought to hold the firearms retailer liable in...

This past Sunday, on the anniversary of the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 18 others (six fatally), the Brady Campaign held several candlelight vigils across the country, in observance of what they called the "Too Many Victims Lost to Gun Violence." The Brady Campaign expects Americans to accept as an article of faith that "stronger" gun laws would dramatically reduce the number of said victims--presumably reducing that number to an "acceptable" level. That, of course, begs the question of what constitutes an "acceptable" number of people shot and wounded or killed. Luckily, we have Brady Campaign board member...

In the early hours of the New Year Oklahoma City dispatch received an emergency call from a scared eighteen-year-old mother who was barricaded in her house. Sarah McKinley, while on the phone with 9-1-1, asked permission to shoot the men attempting to enter her home. Moments later one man entered her home and was fatally shot. The man was armed with a twelve inch hunting knife. His accomplice was later captured and charged with first-degree murder in the death of his cohort. Around the same time Benjamin Colton Barnes shot four people at a New Years Eve party after an...

As the results of the Iowa caucus dribbled in, Americans got to see how the GOP candidates greeted victory and defeat. Top vote-getter Mitt Romney was gracious toward Rick Santorum, who came in second by eight thin votes, but uninspiring as he pledged to get America back to work. Santorum pronounced, "Game on," then hailed his Italian grandfather's decision to leave Italy to dig coal, if that's what it took to bring his family to the United States. Ron Paul, who came in third, saluted the work of his enthusiastic volunteers and credited his success to his role as a...

The “unlike some people” part isn’t stated, merely implied. But c’mon. He’s laying it on with a trowel here. ----------- Less than 12 hours after finishing in fourth place in the Iowa caucuses, Newt Gingrich opened a new, more aggressive chapter in his campaign, taking pointed shots at rivals Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, who both finished ahead of Gingrich. At one point, Gingrich hinted he would make Romney’s personal wealth an issue, telling a reporter “I’m not rich.”… When asked why he chose to congratulate Santorum and not Romney on his caucus success, the former House speaker said, “I...

As Matthew Boyle noted, the ad wars for New Hampshire are about to heat up. Here is the full-page Union Leader ad that Mitt Romney can look forward to seeing when he arrives New Hampshire tomorrow…

The Iowa caucuses may not have much predictive value, but they did a wonderful job of unmasking both elitist whingers on the left and incompetent whiners on the right. As they do every presidential election cycle, progressives of pallor wore their indelible disdain for Middle America on their sleeves. Pale-faced University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom launched a 6,000-word jeremiad, littered with factual errors, against his home state's residents. The abridged version: Raaaaaaaacists! Hicks! Christians! Argggh! In the safe harbors of The Atlantic just a few weeks before Tuesday's electoral event, Bloom sneered: "Those who stay in rural Iowa...

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) – Newt Gingrich will hit GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney as a "timid Massachusetts moderate" in a New Hampshire newspaper ad on Wednesday. The full-page ad, set to run in the influential Union Leader, comes less than one week before the state's first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 10. The Gingrich campaign intends to release television ads in the same vein this week. On Tuesday, Gingrich also said he will run ads in the early primary voting states of South Carolina and Florida, which hold their contests later this month. Calling himself a "bold Ronald Reagan conservative," Gingrich...

Ah, I'm just joshing with you. Great game. Tebow can actually throw the ball. Granted, the Pats' secondary is among the worst ever to play pro football, but there you go.

"Tebow has six comebacks in the fourth quarter and OT this season, I think he's got a good idea how the whole 'elevate my level of play in the final five minutes' thing works." SN

WASHINGTON –Today, Representative Joe Walsh (IL-8) sent a letter to Acting President Dennis Henigan of the Brady Campaign criticizing Mr. Henigan’s request for any debate to be held in Washington D.C. Rep. Walsh had previously invited Mr. Henigan to a debate on the Second Amendment at home in his congressional district, after Mr. Henigan denied the relevance of gun rights and ownership to the American people. Congressman Walsh sent a letter to reiterate the importance of holding this debate in Illinois and in front of the American people, not in Washington. Walsh stated: “While I appreciate Mr. Henigan’s willingness to...

"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythologies, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that at least he won his own kingdom — Lucifer." Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky "A radical programme of social legislation, particularly unemployment insurance; the shifting of the burden of taxation to the wealthy classes; free popular-education — all these and similar measures, which in themselves do...

As might be expected, the Brady Campaign released a statement yesterday condemning the passage by the House of HR 822 - the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011. The statement is replete with plays to emotion, the parsing of language to create the wrong impression, and at least one outright lie. Let's look at the first part of the statement. Washington, D.C. – Just hours after Gabby Giffords spoke publicly for the first time and shared her painful but remarkable story of recovery from being shot in the head, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would force...

On March 30, the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, Jim Brady, who sustained a debilitating head wound in the attack, and his wife, Sarah, came to Capitol Hill to push for a ban on the controversial “large magazines.” Brady, for whom the law requiring background checks on handgun purchasers is named, then met with White House press secretary Jay Carney. During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, “to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,” she said. “I just...

Representative Joe Walsh (no--not that Joe Walsh), a Tea Party supported Republican representing the Illinois 8th congressional district, greatly upset the Brady Campaign late last month when he expounded on the purpose of the Second Amendment. From the Daily Herald: “We are an embarrassment (in Illinois),” Walsh said. “We are the last state standing when it comes to concealed carry. There's no issue when it comes to freedom that matters like this, like the Second Amendment. The most important amendment in that Bill of Rights is the Second Amendment. It protects every other amendment. It is the last line of...

Recently gun dealers were sent a large manila envelope from the NH Firearms Safety Coalition. The packet contained a number of items with a disturbing anti-gun-rights message, including a full color poster... The funding path goes down from the Harvard School of Public Health to the Harvard Injury Control Research Center to the Bohnett Foundation and the Joyce Foundation. Both the Bohnett and Joyce foundations are infamous for being extremely anti-gun-rights.The David Bohnett Foundation "supports and encourages groups that promote the goals of reduction and elimination of the manufacture and sale of handguns in the U.S." (Emphasis added) The Bohnett...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJEvxgfcOFw The conspiratorial connection that will blow your mind! ;)

Yes, I must confess, I am on the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence's email list. There, I said it! "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." Sun Tzu, Chinese general & military strategist (ca. 500 BC) To my horror, amazement, shock and a wealth of other instantaneous emotions, I read the following email from the Brady Campaign that popped into my email inbox recently: I'm sorry, Gov. Perry, I didn't quite catch what you said... Is this the type of President the American public wants? When asked if he was armed on the campaign trail, Texas Governor Rick...

The controversial blogger who posted naked pictures of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s toddler son along with X-rated commentary has bowed to pressure from state police and removed the material from his Web site. Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office confirmed last night that detectives from her office went to the Milton home of David Portnoy, founder of barstoolsports.com, to discuss the posts of Brady’s 20-month-old son, which included a magnified picture of the boy naked on a beach in Costa Rica with his mother, Gisele Bundchen, as well as the offensive comments. “We asked Mr. Portnoy to remove the postings and...

EXCLUSIVE: In the latest chapter of the gunrunning scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, federal officials won't say how two suspects obtained more than 360 weapons despite criminal records that should have prevented them from buying even one gun. Under current federal law, people with felony convictions are not permitted to buy weapons, and those with felony arrests are typically flagged while the FBI conducts a thorough background check. However, according to court records reviewed by Fox News, two of the 20 defendants indicted in the Fast and Furious investigation have felony convictions and criminal backgrounds that experts say,...

Washington, DC --(Ammoland.com)- “Gun Control” advocates fall into only two categories: the Liars and the Ignorant. There is no third category. The Liars invent the lies. The Ignorant believe the lies and repeat them. Truly fervent “gun control” advocates are quite often mentally ill. Their most common clinical symptoms, projection and denial, are barely below the surface. Because they often entertain a warped contempt of other human beings, they don’t trust themselves with guns, so they would prohibit firearms to all. They also entertain a primitive superstition about an inanimate object: “Guns are bad! Guns kill people!” Read what a...

As Wisconsin heads toward lifting a ban on carrying concealed weapons, researchers at the University of California-Davis have turned up some unsettling information about those who may take advantage of the law. In a study using 15-year-old data -- the most recent available -- published online in the journal Injury Prevention, the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program says those who carried concealed weapons or who had confronted someone with a gun were twice as likely to be heavy drinkers than non-gun owners. Gun owners who drove with loaded weapons were four times more likely to hop behind the wheel...

I remember reading recently that Obama met with a gun-grabber group or member, and assured them that things were being done "under the radar" to advance the cause of gun control. With the "gunwalker" stuff hitting the fan, I wonder if the parties to that conversation deserve a subpoena?

PHOENIX, AZ --(Ammoland.com)- Paul Helmke, ringleader of the aggressive Brady Anti-Gun gang, released this statement about the “bipartisan� gun-control meeting the White House scheduled.(Note: The “White House� is a building and can’t do anything; the person responsible in that building remains unidentified but appears to be Steve Croley) The meeting only included people who want to ban guns, an indicator of the plans, according to unidentifiable experts. “On Tuesday, I attended a meeting at the U.S. Department of Justice with representatives from the White House, the Vice-President’s office, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the FBI, and...

It's that time of year again -- the time when the Brady Campaign releases its annual scores and rankings, lavishing praise on state governments that infringe upon the rights of their citizens and scorn on those that respect the Constitution. This year, the occasion was met with about as much enthusiasm as that other spring ritual, the income tax filing deadline. If this is the first you're hearing of the new rankings, let's hope that's because the mainstream media has finally come to its senses about this annual publicity stunt. As it has since 1997, the Brady Campaign's grading system...

Welcome to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, home of many of the major ticket items on the Brady Campaign wish list that they and their fellow citizen disarmament travelers would like to see imposed globally and locally. By any fair reckoning of Brady scorecard accounting, if they give California their highest four star-rating, the DRC should be off their scale. The following information comes from GunPolicy.org, which, by it’s own self-description, “promotes the public health model of firearm injury prevention, as adopted by the United Nations Programme of Action on illicit small arms.” Here’s what they have to say...

(clipped because the graphics on the site are useful) http://www.shootingthebull.net/content/brady-bulletedIt is time to fail the Brady Campaign Report Card. One of the most simplistic and inane canards cast by the Bradys (and they seem to be the experts in this narrow field) is their annual report card concerning gun control laws in each state. Every year Sarah Brady and associated intellectual larceners list gun control laws they like, skew the scoring to put political pressure on target states, then send these scores to their acolytes in order to shame voters in different districts. Yet there is zero correlation between their...

WASHINGTON - A leading gun-control group gave Oklahoma a score of 2 out of a possible 100 points Wednesday, but the score was enough to keep the state off the "do-nothing'' list. According to the fourth-annual scorecard released by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Oklahoma received its 2 points for not forcing colleges to allow firearms on campus. Still, the group concluded, "Oklahoma has weak gun laws that help feed the illegal gun market and allow the sale of guns without background checks.'' Gov. Mary Fallin stood by the state's record. "The U.S. Constitution outlines a right to...

Arizona earned a zero from the Brady campaign this year, the best rating that the anti-freedom group gives out. Alaska and Utah, two other states with sensible gun laws, also earned zero. Charles Heller, of AZCDL, the Arizona Citizen Defense League says that he has been writing letters to the Brady campaign, demanding the Arizona be awarded a zero rating. This year, AZCDL was successful in obtaining the coveted rating. Currently, the Brady Campaign does not give negative ratings, but that may be possible in the future. AZCDL leaders say that they will work throughout the coming year to break...

The anti-gun lobby spends a lot of time and money scaring Americans about what might happen if honest people are allowed more leeway in how, and where, they carry guns. All along, they assured us that gun-related disaster is a likely outcome each time a new pro-gun reform is suggested. Concealed Carry laws were sure to lead to Wild West shootouts, Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground reform was going to turn Florida into a war zone. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley guaranteed that an end to his pet gun ban would lead to an increase in the murder rate. Now...

The Brady Campaign to Whittle Away Your Second Amendment Rights—sorry, Prevent Gun Violence has launched a new test to measure your Gun Law IQ. The test’s name proves my point in yesterday’s editorial: gun control advocates are profoundly elitist. To wit: “IQ” instead of “Knowledge.” Be that as it is, the Campaign’s interactive quiz is just about as misleading as you’d imagine—provided you have a good imagination . . . Speaking of low IQs (or a lack of writing chops), the first question is the very model of convoluted construction. Requiring a background check for handgun sales by private sellers...

In an act of naked self interest, I’m taking a little bandwidth to announce the release of my newest book. "Shooting The Bull" is a field guide to identifying political lies in real-time. The goal is to sharpen everybody's B.S. detectors. I was honored to have a tenured professor of communications contribute a foreword (Brian Patrick, whose book "Rise of the Anti-media" is well worth a read, though its academic pricing makes it a library request). His foreword accurately started: In earlier centuries Guy Smith would have been designated a heretic and condemned to burn at the stake, unless of...

Anti-gun activist Sarah Brady claims President Barack Obama is committed to stealth gun control according to a report in The Washington Post. Recounting a March 30 meeting between Brady, her husband Jim and White House Press secretary Jay Carney, The Post reports: During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, “to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,” she said. “I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Brady Ad Off-Target   Friday, April 15, 2011   We have reported many times on the Brady Campaign’s rush to exploit tragedy for political gain.  Since its inception as the National Council to Control Handguns over 30 years ago, the group has premised its entire agenda on this kind of exploitation for political gain, and on the notion that having more gun control laws and, therefore, fewer guns, means that crime must necessarily decrease.  Since the senseless January 8 attack on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her innocent staff and constituents,...

In this post you will see Tom Brady in a 60-Minutes interview say he is still searching for something. Even with a super model wife who is a millionaire, his multi-million dollar contracts, three super bowl rings, etc., etc., he feels like he is missing out on something: John 4:1-14 (The Message): .....He came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon. A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you...

On Aug. 9, 2010, former senior U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska died when his red 1957 de Havilland float plane tore a 300 foot gash into the side of a mountain in a remote spot far from his constituents and even further from the limelight of Washington, D.C. Stevens was approaching his 87th birthday. In addition to Stevens, four others were killed in the horrific mountainside crash. Stevens' death mirrored his precipitous fall from grace in the U.S. Senate, where he had served the citizens of Alaska for 40 years, longer than any other Republican in history. He had...

Now that Dick Cheney has opened the door to tighter gun restrictions, will President Barack Obama do the same? That politically dicey question is playing out behind the scenes in the run-up to next week’s State of the Union. In the aftermath of the Tucson shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and federal Judge John Roll, gun control groups and some Democratic members of Congress are pushing to get the president to directly address the issue of gun violence in his speech to Congress next Tuesday, according to gun control advocates and congressional aides, who asked for anonymity. Some Democratic party...

Reacting to the assassination attempt on one of their own, two House members on Monday said they will introduce legislation that would ban certain ammunition clips and make it illegal to threaten a federal official, both of which they say contributed to the mass casualties in a shooting rampage in Tuscson over the weekend. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., plans to introduce a bill that would ban high-capacity ammunition clips like the one used by Jared Loughner, the gunman accused of killing 6 and injuring 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., as they gathered at a “Congress on Your Corner” event....

Predictably, liberal politicians and the media overlooked personal responsibility in the case of Jared Loughner, the Arizona shooter. Likewise, that the ne'er-do-well was a pot smoker, a Karl Marx fan and anti-God (any one of which would get member fees waived at the ACLU, Planned Parenthood Foundation or Southern Poverty Law Center), all seem to have escaped the media's notice in the rush to blame responsible religious capitalists of the tea-party sort. As many have observed, the instantaneous and disgusting use of real tragedy and death for utilitarian political gain was disappointing. Rep. Robert Brady's proposed legislation outlawing critical speech...

DENVER (AP) - A group that opposes guns on campus filed an argument with the Colorado Supreme Court urging the justices to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to give students the right to carry firearms at colleges. The Washington, D.C.-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence said in a brief filed Monday that the Court should "protect students and faculty from the severe risks posed by guns." In April, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a gun-rights group that sued the University of Colorado. The group argued that the university's 1994 policy banning concealed weapons violates state...

“This target shoots back,” the click-through ad at the top of the MyFoxMaine.com news page tells us, inviting viewers to watch the season premiere of “Human Target” with its action hero protagonist, guns in each hand blazing. How exciting! And the “Top News Story,” directly under the banner? Virginia Tech Shooting Survivor Speaks in Portland It’s Colin Goddard, on his mission to spread the gospel of citizen disarmament (see sidebar video). Except that’s not what he calls it: "If you say the word gun control, it's the big horrible word," Goddard said. "But if you break it down to the...

In an embarrassing campaign misstep, dozens of political commercials for GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady were yanked from the air Thursday because at least three Chicago television stations did not receive payment. Brady characterized the development five days before next Tuesday's election as a "glitch" that appeared to have gotten worked out late Thursday, allowing his ads to resume airing today. But the mistake cost Brady valuable air time and left the candidate, who has run on cleaning up Springfield's budgetary mess, explaining a financial gaffe of his own. "I understand there was a glitch with our media buyer," Brady...

“Hello, my name is Eco Nomic Illiterate, and I’m voting for Scott Lee Cohen.” Sorry if that seems cruel, but there are some commercials in the current cycle that are really bothering me, and they exemplify a much larger issue: the problem of economic illiteracy across broad swaths of the electorate. For most of our nation’s history, there was general uniformity in the understanding of what created jobs and wealth. The Founding Fathers – Republican and Federalist alike – understood that a small government was good for the economy, and a large government was not. They differed a bit on...

When we ask conservative Republicans running for office this year where they stand on important social issues like gun control and abortion, we typically get a canned response that goes like this: "Golly, when I knock on doors and talk to the voters, they just don't care about that stuff. All they want to talk about is jobs." There is truth to that. The bad economy is foremost on the mind of most voters. But that response is also a transparent dodge, a way to divert attention from what can be extreme, even dangerous, views. In Illinois, nobody has played...

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady [stats] sent flowers to the hospitalized 49-year-old Fall River dad who was injured in last week’s car crash - and may now require back surgery, the man’s attorney said today

PPP has Bill Brady up by 9 here in Illinois. Definite trend in this race...