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The president of the Central African Republic has fled the country's capital and rebels have seized control of the city, a government official said Sunday. President Francois Bozize crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo, said Jules Gautier Ngbapo, a spokesman for the government's territorial administration minister. He declined to disclose Bozize's location Sunday. "Central Africans are waiting for the new president to be named," Ngbapo said in a written statement. Word of Bozize's surprise departure came as violence erupted in the capital, Bangui. Witnesses reported hours of gunfire, and Ngbapo said at least seven civilians were killed as rebels...

SACRAMENTO — One of the most controversial gun-control bills introduced in California this year — a move to seize the 166,000 registered assault weapons grandfathered in under the state's ban — is dead, its author said Thursday. When Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, introduced AB174 in January, it was designed to declare the Legislature's intent to end all "grandfather clauses" allowing ownership of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. But on Tuesday, he gutted and amended the bill to address public-school health centers instead. Coincidentally, it was the same day that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he won't include Sen....

Senator Reid Drops Schumer and Feinstein Gun Bills Written by Bob Adelmann In announcing on Monday afternoon that he was dropping Senator Dianne Feinstein’s gun control bill from consideration by the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said, “Right now her amendment using the most optimistic numbers has less than 40 votes. That’s not 60. I have to get something on the floor so we can have votes on that issue…” He added: I’m not going to try to put something on the floor that won’t succeed. I want something that will succeed. I think the worst of all worlds...

Vice President Joe Biden says requiring Americans to register guns would "cross a cultural line" that would incite conservatives and conspiracy theorists. "The idea that you register your guns – it may make logical sense to say this, but there isn’t a constitutional right to own an automobile. There is a Second Amendment Constitutional right to own a weapon: the right to have and bear arms," he said in an interview with NPR's "All Things Considered." "When you go to registration, it raises all the black-helicopter-crowd notion that what this is all about is identifying who has a gun so...

"Like a concerned parent on a business trip checking in on her unsupervised children, an exasperated Andrea Mitchell whined to fellow Washington reporters Susan Page and Chris Cillizza, that they had "let the assault weapons ban...die!""

Magpul Industries, an Erie, Colorado, based manufacturer of firearms accessories, is moving out of the state following the passage of new gun-control laws - and taking hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars of commerce with it.Magpul's Chief Operating Office, Doug Smith told the Denver Post:"Our moving efforts are underway. It's going to be a phased approach, and until the move is complete, we're going to continue manufacturing magazines in Colorado."Within the next 30-days we will manufacture our first magazine outside the state of Colorado."Colorado Governor, John Hickenlooper signed three new gun bills into law today which requires background checks for private and...

DENVER - Colorado gun sales have been at an all-time high over the past three months, and the increase is a direct result of gun control debates. The mere discussion of a ban on assault rifles in particular is flooding the state with assault rifles. Richard Taylor, manager of The Firing Line in Aurora, is one of several gun dealers in the metro area who say they could sell many more military-style assault rifles than they have been -- if they could get enough of the guns to satisfy demand. “We have had a tremendous run in the past three...

I don’t have the words to describe the cowardice of Congress or the depravity of the gun lobby, which conspired to kill the assault-weapons ban. I can’t explain the apparent impotence of President Obama who vowed to “use whatever power this office holds” to convert the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School into commonsense common good. Fortunately, Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News found the words: Any fool knows that [Adam] Lanza couldn’t possibly have killed as many children as quickly as he did on the morning of Dec. 14 without an assault weapon in his hands. So...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — An advisory panel reviewing the deadly Newtown school shooting for Connecticut's governor on Monday recommended requiring registration of all firearms in the state and mandating all its K-12 classrooms have doors that can be locked from the inside. There was also enough consensus among the commission members to recommend bans on high-capacity magazines and the possession, sale or transfer or guns — both military-style firearms and handguns — that are capable of firing more than 10 rounds of ammunition without reloading. Other recommendations in an interim report from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's Sandy Hook Advisory Commission...

Here we go! Will MAGPUL pull out now?

Amazing. I predicted once or twice in writing about the AWB that there might not be 50 votes but I felt silly about it afterwards. Of course there’d be 50 votes. The bill was doomed to be filibustered given the GOP’s solid opposition plus the skittishness of red-state Dems like Mark Pryor, Mark Begich, and Mary Landrieu, but Reid would be able to muster 50 if only because Senate Democrats would want to avoid humiliating Obama after his big gun-control campaign. That way, even when the bill failed on the cloture vote, O could still claim that it had majority...

Sheriff John Cooke of Weld County, Colorado has been out front in his opposition to the new gun control laws in that state. He led a delegation of sheriffs in testifying against the bills before the Colorado legislature earlier this month. Now he has announced that he doesn't plan to enforce the new laws - and he is within the letter of the law. "Why put the effort into enforcing a law that is unenforceable?" Cooke told The Denver Post on Monday. "With all of the other crimes that are going on, I don't have the manpower, the resources or...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided that a proposed assault weapons ban won't be part of a gun control bill the Senate plans to debate next month, the sponsor of the ban said Tuesday, a decision that means the ban stands little chance of survival. Instead, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she will be able to offer her ban on the military-style firearms as an amendment. Feinstein is all but certain to need 60 votes from the 100-member Senate to prevail, but she faces solid Republican opposition and likely defections from some moderate Democrats.

DENVER (AP) — Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper will sign legislation Wednesday that sets limits on ammunition magazines and expands background checks for firearms, marking a Democratic victory in a state where gun ownership is a treasured right and Second Amendment debate has played out in the wake of two mass shootings. The measures proposed are some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, and their passage comes after weeks of tense legislative battles. Republicans and gun rights supporters put up a major fight against the measures in this politically moderate state, while Democrats made them the centerpieces of a...

Legislators and gun control advocates united Sunday afternoon to discuss and rally around state and federal gun control legislation being considered in the Illinois General Assembly and U.S. Congress. Progress Illinois was there for the unifying, and at points emotional, event. Steve Young (pictured), a member of St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Evanston, held up a photo yesterday of his late son Andrew in front of the nearly 500 people packed inside of Chicago Sinai Congregation’s sanctuary. Andrew was shot and killed in 1996 when he was 19 years old. “He was killed by a teenager with a gun originally...

MSNBC’s newest ad features weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry unwittingly -- or at least one hopes-- referencing the Communist Chinese economic program known as the “Great Leap Forward” which left an estimated 18-45 million Chinese dead. The 30-second ad featuring Ms. Perry is narrated as follows: No fight began just in the years preceding victory. The struggle for civil rights didn’t begin in the 1950s. African-Americans had been demanding representation since the 1880s. Women didn’t just start fighting for the vote in the 1920s. That began at the founding of this country. Immigrants to this country have been since its founding...

Religious leaders attending the U.S. Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath Weekend called for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, organizers said.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz's question to California Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein on the Second Amendment in a March 14 hearing forced MSNBC hosts into conniptions, At the heart of the congressional debate are the questions: Does the Second Amendment prohibit the federal government from passing laws related to firearms, leaving the role exclusively to the states? Or does the Second Amendment grant Congress the authority to pass laws banning guns whenever it believes it appropriate? The Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights provides that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The...

A growing number of states are moving forward with legislation to exempt them from new federal gun controls and, in some cases, brand as criminals anyone who tries to enforce them. While many of the bills are considered symbolic or appear doomed to fail, the legislative explosion reflects a backlash against legislative and regulatory efforts in Washington to tamp down on gun violence. As of this week, at least 28 states had taken up consideration of gun bills this year, according to new data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures. More than 70 bills have been put forward...

Cooke won’t enforce new state gun laws Weld County Sheriff John Cooke said he won’t enforce either gun-control measure waiting to be signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper, saying the laws are “unenforceable” and would “give a false sense of security.” One bill passed Friday would expand requirements to have background checks for firearm purchases. Hickenlooper is expected to sign it into law within two weeks. Earlier this week, Colorado lawmakers approved a 15-round limit on ammunition magazines. It also is awaiting the expected approval of the governor. Cooke said Democratic lawmakers are uninformed but are scrambling in reaction...

Western New York man now faces seven years in prison for violating Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new gun control-law, the NY Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act (or SAFE Act). Benjamin M. Wassell, an Iraq War veteran, was charged with twice selling newly banned military-style ‘assault’ weapons and standard-capacity magazines to an undercover police officer as part of a sting operation conducted by State Police and the New York Attorney General’s Office, the Buffalo News reported. Altogether, the 32-year-old Silver Creek resident was slapped with three felony charges and one misdemeanor, which as noted could end up putting Wassell, who has...

I can't help but wonder if some of our politicians are simply lacking knowledge, or if they are willfully ignorant about the implications of the legislation they pass through their chambers. Let's look at a case in point and see if we can come up with an answer. The state of Colorado is as good a place to start as any. Colorado is a state that should epitomize the American West. It is as rugged as any state in America, with the Rocky Mountains raising their jagged tops into the sky. One would think the state would seek to protect...

DENVER (AP) — A landmark expansion of background checks on firearm purchases was approved Friday by lawmakers in Colorado, a politically moderate state that was the site of last year's mass shooting at a suburban Denver movie theater. The bill previously passed the state Senate and now heads to Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, who is expected to sign it into law within two weeks. Earlier this week, Colorado lawmakers approved a 15-round limit on ammunition magazines. It is also awaiting the expected approval of the governor. The bill passed Friday expands cases when a $10 criminal background check would be...

“When interviewed by video journalist Jason Mattera, U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky … left no doubt that she and her ideological allies are working hard to pour a little more oil on that slope, and crank up the incline a few more degrees,” St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner Kurt Hofmann wrote, exposing the fraud of gungrabbers who ridicule warnings of a “slippery slope.” “We’re on a roll now,” Schakowsky claimed. “We’re gonna push as hard as we can and as far as we can.” When asked if the “assault weapon” ban was just the beginning, Schakowsky replied “Oh absolutely. I mean,...

With just a day left in this year’s regular session, a high-profile bill aimed at curbing gun violence is still alive in the Legislature. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-4 late Thursday to approve House Bill 77, sending it on to the Senate floor. The vote broke down along party lines, with all six Democratic committee members voting in favor and all four Republican committee members voting in opposition. However, even if the bill gains full Senate approval by noon Saturday, it would still face one more obstacle in order to move on to Gov. Susana Martinez’s desk...

Hartford, Connecticut --(Ammoland.com)- Once again, thousands of pro-liberty activists descended on the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. They were met by a Public Safety and Security Committee that was mostly absent from the hearing, legislators that noticeably disappeared when Colt Manufacturing dropped off busloads of employees that filled the building. They were also met by handful of anti-rights activists who were quickly overwhelmed by the thousands of pro-rights activists in attendance. This is not surprising. The January rally of pro-rights activists netted thousands of people that filled the entire back half of the Capitol Building. When the anti-rights activists later...

During Friday’s marathon gun control hearing in the Colorado Senate, Republican Sen. Kent Lambert offered an amendment to exempt active military members, veterans and their families from the gun magazine ban. Enter Sen. Mary Hodge, a disgraceful Dem who urged fellow lawmakers to oppose the exemption because “some of them come back with significant mental health problems.” …

El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa told an angry crowd Thursday he would stand firm against Democrat-sponsored gun bills that will almost certainly become law July 1. Maketa, who received several standing ovations during a two-hour public meeting about gun legislation, said the proposed laws were hastily crafted and at least one would be unenforceable. “One of the reasons a vast, vast majority of sheriffs around this state are opposing these bills and all aspects of these bills is because they are concerned that this is a stepping stone to registration” of gun owners, he said. “We will not tolerate...

There is a poll at the Denver Post on the proposed magazine ban. It is about 1/3 the way down on the right hand side. Be careful about the questions. The first response is "for" to overturn the ban. Link to the Poll

Several hours into the General Assembly's first hearing on proposed gun control bills at the state Capitol Thursday, state Sen. Joan Hartley turned to a gun industry representative and asked what gun-control measures he could live with. Stiffer penalties for gun trafficking, a crackdown on illegal gun purchases and laws to keep guns away from people with mental illness, responded Joseph Bertozzi, senior vice president of O.F. Mossberg and Sons, a gun manufacturer based in North Haven. "What has never worked is gun bans,'' Bertozzi told members of the legislature's public safety committee, including Hartley, a Waterbury Democrat. "We firmly...

S. 374 represents a direct blow to Americans’ right to keep and bear arms without excessive government interference. The bill holds that any “transfer” of a firearm must be conducted via a middleman (in practice, a law-enforcement officer or the holder of a Federal Firearms License) and that a transferee is obliged to submit to a check under the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. There are good-faith arguments in favor of and against this provision. But Chuck Schumer has narrowed the definition of “transfer” so strictly as to make his proposition absurd. If, for example, a gun owner...

Folks, Keep your eyes on the target. Everyone (for good reason) is crowing over how Sen. Ted Cruz completely creamed Marxist CA Senator Dianne Feinstein. If you haven't seen it, go here here However, this is classic Democrat Party bait-and-switch. If you're old enough to remember FReeping in the Clinton years like I have, you'd remember that the Clinton Democrats will put out a bill so extreme as to generate an uproar, then withdraw the bill and admit that they overreach and introduce "more modest" legislation. Well, the more "modest" gun legislation is none other than Chucky Schumer's Universal Background...

YouTube: VIDEO: CO mag ban could eliminate usage of many more guns than anticipated The video is one minute long, and loaded easily on medium network connection.

WASHINGTON – The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a renewed assault-weapons ban, advancing the measure to the Senate floor where it will face intense resistance from Republicans and other gun-rights supporters. The bill was approved by the committee on a party-line, 10-8 vote. Chief sponsor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she knows "the road is uphill" for the legislation, but sought to press her colleagues to consider the bill. "Are we going to stand with the thousands of police chiefs and law enforcement officers who do support this bill? Are we going to stand with the victims of gun...

When I go shooting with friends, we head out into the desert and inevitably we admire each other's firearms and swap 'em for a try to compare their accuracy, feel and overall abilities. That makes us criminals under the "background check" bill currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Charles Schumer, who proposed the measure, has packed his legislation full of legal snares virtually guaranteed to turn gun owners into lawbreakers. That's an impressive little sleight of hand for legislation considered to be the only sort of gun control with a chance to make it through Congress. Ed Stone...

You’ll shoot your eye out kid! Or at least that’s what one Assemblywoman must believe of children that attend gun shows with their family. Linda Rosenthal (D) has introduced a new bill that would ban children under 12 from attending a gun show in New York state. Via the Times Union (the sarcasm is fantastic): The bill was put forward by Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, who hails from that trackless wilderness and sportsmen’s paradise known as Manhattan. “Children should be learning to read and write, not to shoot a firearm,” Rosenthal says in a statement, as if the two skills were...

Hundreds of workers from Colt Manufacturers told lawmakers new gun control laws will put them out of work at a rally at the state Capitol in Hartford Thursday morning. "Save our Jobs," employees at the demonstration shouted. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is pushing for a ban on certain military-style weapons, which could affect companies such as Colt Manufacturers, Stag Arms and Ammunition Storage Components. "We are for safer Connecticut," said Mike Holmes, who is a Colt Manufacturers employee. "We have been at the table. We want to continue to be at the table." Colt Manufacturers told Eyewitness News that the...

Mark Kelly's campaign against "assault weapons" such as the AR-15 rifle has sparked a local backlash. On March 13, a Tucson, Arizona radio host published a photograph of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords holding an AR-15 rifle at a gun range. Giffords has since confirmed that the photograph is authentic.

Colorado -–(Ammoland.com)- The most dangerous phase in the fight to defeat the gun grabbers’ all-out assault on our Second Amendment freedoms is upon us. I’m talking about the gun grabbers’ “Plan B” alternative – a triple threat designed to sound more “reasonable” to the public than a total gun ban. After I explain why this “Plan B” triple threat is so dangerous, I need you to take IMMEDIATE action and forward this article to every pro-gun person you know and ask them to help fight back as well. The “Plan B” alternative has three components: Fictitious “gun trafficking” legislation, so-called...

Everyone in politics bends the truth. But some do it more than others. Here is a list of five memes gun-control advocates continue to propagate despite their dubious validity. 1. 40 Percent of Guns are Sold without Background Checks From New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to President Obama to Vice President Biden, they’ve all mentioned the “40 percent” figure with respect to the number of gun transactions that are conducted without a background check. “The law already requires licensed gun dealers to run background checks, and over the last 14 years that’s kept 1.5 million of the wrong people...

Elizabeth Warren rips into GOP, NRA By: Patrick Reis March 14, 2013 09:07 AM EDT Sen. Elizabeth Warren planted a liberal flag on Thursday, pushing the government’s right to regulate as she ripped Republicans, the National Rifle Association and anyone else who would stand in its way. In a wide-ranging speech to the Consumer Federation of America, Warren defended federal regulations as essential for safe consumers and a healthy economy. And at a time when “cutting red tape” is a key plank of Republicans’ plan for economic growth, Warren argued that regulations were a success story in America. “It’s thanks...

He wants you to get a background check if you lend your friend a gun for the weekend. Yesterday, S. 374, or the “Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013� as it has been inexplicably termed, passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by ten votes to eight. If it were to become law, S. 374 would usher in what advocates refer to as a system of “universal background checks.� It would do a lot more, besides. As it stands in our ostensibly ghoulish status quo, a free American citizen may leave his guns with his unrelated roommate for more...

Wearing bulletproof vests and carrying 40-caliber Glock pistols, nine California Justice Department agents assembled outside a ranch-style house in a suburb east of Los Angeles. They were looking for a gun owner who'd recently spent two days in a mental hospital. They knocked on the door and asked to come in. About 45 minutes later, they came away peacefully with three firearms. California is the only state that tracks and disarms people with legally registered guns who have lost the right to own them, according to Attorney General Kamala Harris. Almost 20,000 gun owners in the state are prohibited from...

DENVER - Two Littleton men say Colorado lawmakers over-stepped their bounds when they approved a ban on high capacity gun magazines. Now, Tim LeVier and J.T. Davis are trying to put the issue to a vote of the people.

DENVER – Gun-rights advocates filed a recall petition against state Rep. Mike McLachlan, D-Durango, on Tuesday. A group called Colorado Accountability has been threatening the recall for two weeks. Organizers now have about two months to collect 10,586 valid signatures from voters in McLachlan’s House District 59. “This is their right to petition to recall me. I look forward to a full discussion of the issues,” McLachlan said. He didn’t want to comment further until he saw the official petition. The secretary of state’s office will work with Colorado Accountability to make sure the petition is formatted properly. After that,...

New York, NY --(Ammoland.com)- Just when American gun owners thought they were safe from the gun grabbers at the United Nations, a zombie returns from the dead. Now being billed as the “Final UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty”, it’s on the world body’s agenda once again. American gun owners better beware. Despite repeated failures to agree in previous attempts at passage, most recently in August of 2012, the UN is once again seeking the required 100% consensus among nations to establish in international law the responsibility of all nations to control and eventually disarm their law-abiding citizens. From...

House Democrats in Olympia have conceded defeat in their effort to pass a bill to require background checks for all gun purchases in Washington. OLYMPIA — Gun-control advocates in the state House conceded defeat Tuesday night on their top priority this session: requiring background checks for all gun sales. While cautioning that nothing is ever truly dead in Olympia, bill sponsor Jamie Pedersen said that after an intense day of politicking “it does not appear that we’re going to make it there” before Wednesday’s cutoff for non-budget legislation. House Bill 1588 had come up three votes short.

PHOENIX - The husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords went to a Tucson gun store a week ago to buy a .45-caliber handgun and a military-style rifle the day before he appeared with his wife at the supermarket where she was wounded in a rampage two years ago, and it didn't take long for the purchase to draw criticism from gun-rights supporters. Mark Kelly said he bought the AR-15-style weapon to draw attention to the relative ease with which people can get the type of gun that the shooter used in the Newtown school and Colorado movie theater killings....

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted details of a no bid contract with weapons manufacturer Sig Sauer, worth $4.5 million over the next five years. The contract is identical to the one DHS announced last week with Heckler & Koch. Both contracts are for $900,000 worth of "replacement parts" a year, for weapons used by DHS agents. ... DHS is purchasing 2,717 'Mine Resistant Protected' vehicles

I just received this in a email from the NRA. I also received an email earlier in the day from the NRA that emphatically denies that the NRA will back expanded background checks. This came shortly have a report by NBC went viral. Actually, it wasn't a report, it was a huge lie.