Free Republic

Long ago, in a far away country (2017 in California) a dying city locked treasure in a forgotten vault, to be handed over to the new, larger regime. The treasure was inventoried then ignored for several months. During that time, from March 6, 2017, to August 31, 2017, the treasure, 23 Beretta .40 caliber handguns and 8 Glock .40 caliber handguns, disappeared.  No one admits knowing who purloined the treasure or where it has gone. At the end of March 2018, the city gave up on finding the treasure on its own, without controversy. They offered a reward close...

Kashuv is a 16-year-old student survivor of the Valentine’s Day massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida. He is a Second Amendment advocate (and apparently a really knowledgeable one).Kyle Kashuv to Piers Morgan: Here’s what the Second Amendment stands for. (BPR screenshots) Kyle’s Twitter takedown started after Morgan falsely claimed the Second Amendment “was about arming people as part of a well regulated militia – not as a bunch of unregulated Rambos.” Kashuv responded by saying: “So you don’t bother to read Federalist Papers? Not your thing?”

 Image from Michael Zelany Facebook Menlo Park is part of the San Francisco Bay urban area of California. A free-speech and Second Amendment activist has sued the City of Menlo park and a number of City officials, for denial of his civil rights under the First, Second and  Fourteenth Amendments.  The lawsuit was filed on 28 December, 2017.  On 2 February, 2018, the Palo Alto Daily Post wrote about it.  From padailypost.com: Zeleny’s suit contends that his protests are an entertainment ‘event” that he’s filming, and therefore he is eligible for an exemption in the concealed carry law that’s used...

Rolling Stone magazine crows about what is “different” about this iteration of the anti-Second Amendment movement. It isn't because students are involved. That has been tried before. What is different this time is those anti-Second Amendment billionaires built up a network across the nation. A network of paid activists that was ready to spring into action when the “right” emotional moment presented itself. From rollingstone.com: Everyone wants to know why Parkland was different. And the reason, says Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, is how quickly the community coalesced around a clear purpose: “Within hours of the shooting. We...

At about 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, 22 March, 2018, in St. Paul, Minnesota, a 39-year-old man arranged to meet a man to purchase an iPhone X. The “sale” turned out to be a pretext for an armed robbery. One report says the “seller” stuck a gun in the side of the would-be buyer, then robbed him as he was counting out $500 for the purchase. The meeting was arranged on Facebook.  From cbslocal.com: Police say a suspect is in custody after a permit-to-carry holder in St. Paul shot him during an armed robbery. According to St. Paul Police, it...

West VirginiaArizona -(Ammoland.com)- Governor Jim Justice of West Virginia has signed a reform bill to ensure that West Virginians can exercise their Second Amendment rights during travel. The Governor signed the bill HB 4187, on Friday, March 23rd. The bill passed the House with 85 Yea votes to 14 Nays, on February 27th. It passed the Senate on 9 March, 32 to 1, then had to return to the House because of two amendments that passed the Senate. It passed the House again, on 10 March, 87-11. From wdtv.com: CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WDTV) — Governor Jim Justice has signed a...

An army of a thousand migrants from Central America are marching through Mexico to the US where they hope to get in by any means - legal or not. The massive flood of migrants hail mostly from Honduras, where the country has become rife with gang violence and political unrest.The journey began on Sunday March 25 when 1,200 men, women and children gathered together to cross immigration checkpoints with a organization called Pueblos Sin Fronteras, meaning People Without Borders, according to BuzzFeed News.And the number is only growing as migrants walk to the border in 90-degree heat, sleep on the floor of town...

Commercial hunters are the stuff of legend. Scottish Karamojo Bell harvested elephants for ivory in Africa at the turn of the century. American Billy Dixon made the famed long shot with a buffalo rifle to stop the attack on Adobe Walls.  Norwegian Per Jonsson harvested 165 polar bears on Halfmoon Island near Svalbard, Norway, in two years in 1969-71. Increasing human populations and agriculture have reduced the potential for commercial hunting. Australia is a place where commercial hunters survive. Australia is a continent as big as the lower 48 states, with a human population smaller than Texas. Australia has game...

Brazil has extremely strict gun control laws and relatively few firearms. It is estimated there are about 17 million firearms in Brazil. Only 5.4 million are legally owned by private parties. 2.2 million are owned by the military and police, and 9.5 million are illegally possessed.  It would take centuries of rigorous enforcement of gun confiscation to reach that level in the United States, if it ever were possible. There are over 400 million firearms in private hands in the United States.  A number comparable to Brazil's 17 million guns and 200 million people would be 28 million guns...

February of 2018 has National Instant background Check System (NICS) numbers a little higher than February of last year. 2017 was the second highest year on record for NICS checks. There were 2,333,193 checks done in February of 2018. That is 104.4% of the 2,234,817 checks done in February of 2017. February 2018 is the second highest February of NICS checks on record. The highest was in February, 2013, when severe infringements on gun purchases seemed likely under the Obama administration. In 2013, it was fear that pressure from President Obama and a Republican Congress fearful of the intense...

Wyoming Governor Matt Mead signed HB 141 on 12 March, 2018. The bill reforms state law to restore First (freedom of religion) and Second (right to keep and bear arms) Amendment rights. The bill repeals existing state law that bans concealed weapons in any place people are assembled for public worship. From kemmerergazette.com: Monday, March 12, Governor Mead signed HEA 34 (HB 141). This not a gun bill; it is a government bill. “Concealed Weapons in Places of Worship” is not about whether concealed weapons will be in places of worship or not. It is about whether church or...

On March 14th and 15th,  2018, before the mass organized school “walkout” to push for more restrictions on gun ownership, a teacher led a discussion about political protests. Julian Benzel, a teacher at Rocklin High School in California opened a debate about how protests were political, and schools should be even-handed in their politics. The teacher reported the students understood the school should not pick losers and winners of controversial issues. From cbslocal.com: Benzel says she never discouraged her students from participating in the national school walk out, but she did question whether it’s appropriate for a school to...

On Friday, 16 March, about 2 p.m. in Aurora, Colorado, an armed robber victimized a small grocery run by an Ethiopian immigrant. In the barber shop next door, the barbers heard a scream, then a shot, then two more shots. One of the barbers grabbed his gun and went out the door. Outside he entered into a gunfight with the robbery suspect. From the portrayal of the other barber, it appears the armed Samaritan used cover and concealment.  Several shots were fired. The armed robbery suspect was wounded and ran off. Video of interview from the sceneFrom auroragov.org: It...

David Dunstan, an Australian farmer who defended his family from an armed intruder, may have finally gotten his three guns back. His story illustrates much that is wrong with Australia's extreme gun laws. No one disputes the events that brought David Dunstan and his family to the attention of the authorities.David Dunstan lives on a rural property near Bungowannah, New South Wales. It is about 10 miles outside the Australian town of Albury.  At 3 a.m. on the 14th of September, 2017 he answered the door and found himself confronting a teen armed with a knife and a large...

This picture, from the facebook page of MSG Firearms, shows a student with an anti-NRA sign while wearing a hoodie with the motto ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ and the date 480 B.C. ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ is what the Spartan king, Leonidas I is said to have told the Persian Emperor Xerxes I, when Xerxes demanded that they lay down their arms. It means, “Come and Take Them!” The same motto was used by Texicans in the battle of Gonzales in the first battle of the Texas war for independence. That war started with the Mexican tyrant Santa Anna attempted to disarm the Texas...

On November 29 of 2016, in St. Louis, Missouri, Terrell McDaniel, 36, was attacked by Robert Collins, 44. Collins was intoxicated and attacked McDaniel with a milk crate. During the affray, McDaniels defended himself with a knife, stabbing Collins numerous times. Collins died at the scene.  From stltoday.com: According to his lawyer, Joe Whitener, McDaniel told the jury he feared for his life during a street fight. Collins was intoxicated and belligerent when he asked McDaniel for drugs, and McDaniel refused. Collins then tried to attack McDaniel with a Prairie Farms milk crate, Whitener said, and McDaniel stabbed Collins...

Dick's Sporting Goods took the politically correct route to placate media pushed gun control after the mass murder in Florida. They banned the sale of the popular AR-15 type rifles and said they would refuse to sell rifles to people under 21 years old. Federal law requires that gun dealers not sell rifles and shotguns to people less than 18 years old. It wasn't the first time the controversial chain had put political correctness ahead of stockholders and customer. CEO Edward Stack said he expected to lose sales. From cnn.com: The CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods said he's forging...

I recall reading or hearing of research to determine the level of understanding of opponents political arguments by conservatives and leftists/liberals. The research, as I recall, showed a list of policy questions, and asked the recipient, who was self identified, as conservative or liberal/leftist, to give the opposite sides arguments on each policy question. My understanding was that conservatives consistently understood and knew the opposite sides arguments, while liberal/leftists were ignorant of the conservative arguments. I have been looking for the source of this research, but have not found any. Is this research a myth, or is there an actual...

In 2017, when I visited Australia, Donald Eykamp had an ongoing appeal at the New South Wales Supreme Court. That case has been resolved. The decision came down on 18 December 2017. I was unable to obtain a copy of the decision until after I had returned to Australia. I carefully read the decision, then conferred with an Australian barrister. The decision was a disaster for gun owners. It gave the New South Wales Police everything they asked for. Then, it gave them things they did not ask for.For a while, the politics looked promising. The New South Wales...

Jeanne Ives and Governor Bruce Rauner It isn't often that you see political courage shown in Illinois. Illinois is a deep blue state that has very restrictive gun control laws. Chicago politicians are all to eager to curry favor with the national media and to go-along to get-along with the anti-Second Amendment agenda. Illinois politics is dominated by Chicago. Governor Bruce Rauner went against the flow and the enormous power wielded by the network media. He vetoed an expensive and ineffective bill, SB 1657, designed to make gun sales more difficult in Illinois, at least for small dealers.  From...