Free Republic

The National Rifle Association just wrapped up its annual meeting in Houston back in the Lone Star State. Some highlights: Texas Governor Rick Perry fired a big gun for funsies, a bleeding Obama zombie target was banned, and Sarah Palin recieved a standing ovation for her speech. This is the same speech in which she represented her 4.5 million “brothers and sisters” of the NRA by wagging her finger at the “lamestream media,” a “poodle-skirted cheerleader for the president” and giving her audience the wink and nudge of the elbow with names in her family like “Trigg” and “Remington.” Palin’s...

... I was proud of almost all your New England senators, who listened to their constituents, and put safety over the big money of the gun lobby. But like so many Granite Staters, 89 percent of whom support expanded background checks, I was disappointed with Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who did not listen to her constituents and who alone in New England voted in lockstep with the NRA.... When I voted for health care reform, which was not at all popular among my constituents, I got a lot of angry calls about my vote for health care. I listened. I felt...

Gun control advocates are in hysterics, using frenzied, emotional attacks against Senators who opposed gun control last month in hopes of changing the momentum. This explains why Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) has been targeted in New Hampshire, and it's why Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly have been targeting Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in Kentucky. Staunch gun control supporters saw Sandy Hook Elementary as their opportunity to secure more gun laws, but now they see that opportunity fading away....

There will almost certainly be an aspect of the National Rifle Association's convention — which opens today in Houston — that feels like a victory celebration. By organizing and agitating its members, the organization was able to kill a Senate compromise on background checks, steamrolling over an ineffectual Organizing For Action. But as discussion of reviving that deal heats up, the NRA may finally face a real roadblock: public opinion. Prior to the April 17th vote — which failed to end a Republican-led filibuster on a bipartisan compromise to expand background checks — there were certainly coordinated organizing efforts. Mayors...

Isaac Chotiner explains that the expressed desire/hope/prediction of many liberals that the Boston bombers turn out to be white non-Muslims was based on a “reasoned reactions to a society that is still full of racism and bigotry” and that “in times of national emergency or stress, double standards—one form of that dreaded disease called political correctness—serve very useful purposes.” He writes that if the bomber had turned out to be white, then the bombing would have been treated as an isolated incident and that if the bombers were “militia-men type extremists”, then you wouldn’t have seen racial profiling and such....

You might have thought that the mangled bodies of 20 dead children would have been enough to overcome the crazed obsessions of the gun lobby. You might have believed that the courage and exhortations of a former congresswoman — her career cut short and her life forever changed by a would-be assassin’s bullet — would have pushed Congress to do the right thing. You might have reasoned that polls showing overwhelming public support for a sensible gun control measure would have persuaded politicians to take a modest step toward preventing more massacres. You would have been wrong. The U.S. Senate...

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, keep pushing for stricter gun laws as they continue to own weapons for recreational purposes, including the same type of gun used in the January 2011 shooting rampage that left Giffords wounded. However, the couple’s 9-mm Glock holds fewer bullets than the one used the Tucson shooting spree. Limiting the size of ammunition magazines is one of the goals of a new political action committee formed by Giffords and Kelly. The couple was interviewed in Tucson by CNN for a segment that aired Tuesday evening. Kelly was shown shooting pots and...

Former congresswoman Gabby Giffords’ op-ed piece is getting a lot of praise on Twitter. This is the part of the piece that caught our attention: What they will do is create one fair system for all gun buyers, instead of the giant loophole we have now. Right now, we have one system where responsible gun owners take a background check — And then we have a second system for those who don’t want to take a background check. Those people — criminals, or people suffering from mental illness, like the young man who shot me — can buy as many...

An Arizona gun store cancelled a purchase made by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords’s husband Mark Kelly. On March 5th, Kelly visited Diamondback Police Supply in Tucson, selected an AR-15 style rifle, a .45 caliber handgun, and some high capacity magazines, completed a background check and paid for his purchases. Within days, the story (broke nationally) and Kelly claimed that his purchases were made to highlight how easy it is to get a gun. He also added that he intended to turn the AR-15 into the Tucson Police. The story sparked almost 4,000 comments to Mark Kelly’s public Facebook page, many...

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.

A lot of twists and turns in this story from Breitbart.com. Shock, no one else in the media apart from Fox is bothering to cover it. Allah has a good summary. Mark Kelly, Gabby Giffords' husband, got caught buying an AR-15. Not a crime, of course, but certainly a strange purchase for a gun-control advocate looking to ban the weapon. He then claimed he was buying it to demonstrate how easy it is to buy an AR-15. Couple problems with this story: 1. He didn't actually buy it. The gun he intended to buy was on consignment, and there's a...

The press is convinced that conservatives do not like them because of conjured up, imaginary reasons. That couldn’t be further from the truth. This past week, the press gave us yet another example of why conservatives have legitimate reason to hate them. Monday, one of the best media critics in America, Howard Kurtz, wrote a column at CNN.com about conservatives blaming the liberal media for the nut in California. His column included this: Now it’s true that some on the left tried to tar Palin when Jared Loughner opened fire in a Phoenix shopping center, killing six people and wounding...

From the Washington Post to The Atlantic to Buzzfeed to to Think Progress to Business Insider to veteran journalist Christiane Amanpour, the touching photo of former Rep. Gabby Giffords’s “handwritten testimony” in favor of stricter gun control spread across social media like wildfire. Just one problem: It wasn’t her handwriting.

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly launched a website aimed at curbing gun violence Tuesday, the second anniversary of the mass shooting in Arizona that left her critically wounded. "Two years ago, a mentally ill young man shot me in the head, killed six of my constituents, and wounded 12 others," Giffords wrote on the website. "Since that terrible day, America has seen 11 more mass shootings -- but no response from Congress to prevent gun violence." The website, titled "Americans for Responsible Solutions", also features an opinion article that the couple penned, which was published by...

[Full Title] 'I am the devil': Former classmate reveals school gunman had 'online devil worshiping page' as childhood barber recounts how he never spoke and just stared at floors The Sandy Hook gunman worshiped the devil and had an online page dedicated to Satan, a former classmate revealed, as his childhood barber recalls Adam Lanza never spoke and would stare at the floor every time he had his hair cut. He told CNN that Adam would never speak or even look at him any time he came in for a cut, which was every six weeks for years. Lanza's worshiping...

http://m.newsbusters.org/blogs/pj-gladnick/2011/01/19/palm-beach-post-columnist-slams-parents-rep-giffords-doctor-supporting-&themeId=0&group=blogs&tag=lambiet%20parents%20giffords%20lemole%20rep&traditional=true&title=Palm%20Beach%20Post%20Columnist%20Slams%20Parents%20of%20Rep%20Giffords%20Doctor%20for%20Supporting%20Tea%20Party%20Candidates

The suspect in a shooting that left a U.S. congresswoman wounded pleaded guilty Tuesday to going on the rampage that killed six other people. The plea spares Jared Lee Loughner the death penalty in an attack that gained worldwide attention. The plea came soon after a federal judge had found that months of forcibly medicating Loughner to treat his schizophrenia had made the 23-year-old college dropout competent to understand the gravity of the charges against him and assist in his defense. At one point, Judge Larry A. Burns asked Loughner if he understood the charges against him and what the...

The race, which has been under way since April, is between Republican nominee Jesse Kelly, a former Marine who ran against Giffords in 2010, and Ron Barber, Giffords’ former district director. Barber himself was injured in the shooting outside the Safeway grocery store on Jan. 8, 2011. He was shot in the leg and the cheek. Giffords has not been very present in Barber’s campaign. She was featured on a mailer paid for by the Democratic Party of Arizona, and she will be campaigning for the candidate this weekend. However, regardless of Giffords level of involvement, the race was never...

Obama's a target at O.K. Corral In modern-day Tombstone, they're quick to condemn Democrats and a president whose middle name is Hussein At high noon today, just as it was in history, gunfire crackles over the saloons and stagecoaches of the Old West's most authentically phoney village. Mortally wounded desperadoes stagger, topple, and croak, while their tin-badged terminators repair to Big Nose Kate's for poker and rotgut until it's time to slay for pay again. In the old silver-and goldmining centre of Tombstone, down in Cochise County, 50 kilometres north of the Mexican border, the best-attended duels are staged daily...

Fox and Friends did an interview with Col.(Ret)McSally. She's running for Gabby's seat in Arizona CD8 and she just blew herself out of the water.

..WASHINGTON (AP) — The Navy has named a ship for Gabrielle Giffords, the recently retired congresswoman from Arizona who is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head received in January 2011. In a ceremony at the Pentagon, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus unveiled an artist's rendering of the USS Gabrielle Giffords. The littoral combat ship is among the Navy's most versatile and can operate in shallower coastal waters than larger ships. Mabus said: "God bless the USS Gabrielle Giffords and all who sail in her." Mabus also announced that the ship's "sponsor" is Roxanna Green. She's the mother of Christina-Taylor...

Littoral ship named for Gabby ---

The Secretary of the Navy announced on Friday that a new littoral combat ship will be named after former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). The announcement comes the same day that President Obama signed the last piece of legislation sponsored by Giffords, a bill aimed at reducing drug trafficking along the American borders with Canada and Mexico. Giffords, who recently stepped down from office, was the target of a shooting rampage in early January 2011. “The name this ship bears and the story represented by that name will inspire all those who come in contact with her,” said Navy Secretary Ray...

President Obama is eyeing Arizona as one of the few Republican states he might flip in November, but to do that he might need the help of its brightest star: former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D). Whether Giffords will lend her considerable clout to the president’s reelection campaign remains an open — and exceedingly delicate — question.

With Giffords' official resignation, as I understand Arizona law, they have to have a special election for the remainder of the term, then the regular election in the fall. Does anyone have any information on who is running in this special election? could be a harbinger.

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will step down from Congress this week to focus on her recovery, her staff announced Sunday. "I have more work to do on my recovery, so to do what is best for Arizona, I will step down this week," Giffords said in a video message. Giffords, a third-generation Arizonan who served five years in the state Legislature before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2006, will not seek re-election this fall. Giffords vowed to return public service. "I will return and we will work together for Arizona and this great country," she...

An elderly, former Marine who lost his wife of 54 years in the Tucson mass shootings expressed his anger at fellow victim and Congresswoman Gabbie Giffords. George Morris, 77, was shot in the leg and back in the attack just over a year ago as he tried to protect his wife from the gunman. Dorothy Morris, 76, was killed after the couple had gone to the Safeway supermarket to quiz Ms Giffords' political opinions. Mr Morris, who describes himself as 'ultra-conservative', even refused a visit from President Obama while he recovered in hospital following the shootings in Arizona. The couple...

In an hour-long special on Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Arizona) and her miraculous recovery, ABC's Diane Sawyer ruined it in a segment about the Congresswoman's political future. Sawyer praised the Congresswoman as being "upbeat" during the "unsettling" 2010 campaign season in which she received "vitriol" from her constituents. Sawyer then linked these events to someone shooting her office door while including a sound of a gun being shot. Continuing, Sawyer says Giffords was "targeted" by Sarah Palin. Cue video of Palin speaking and the ad which had a cross-hair on Giffords' district. Transcript below: DIANE SAWYER: "So does Gabby Giffords really...

Sarah Palin... COOPER: Has she been unfairly painted here? COOPER: Dana, I want to play for you.. what she said about the whole blood libel thing... COOPER: I mean, she -- she seems unwilling to -- to apologize or back off about -- of anything... DANA LOESCH... We have a Tea Party organizer that received a death threat because of all -- you want to talk about rhetoric -- because of all of the things that are being said about conservatives and being said about Tea Partiers and Sarah Palin.... BELCHER: Dana, I just can't -- I can't let her...

Sheriff Dupnik continues to politicize the shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords and the death of several aides and bystanders. "When you have people like Sharron Angle in Las Vegas running against [Harry] Reid making outrageous statements such as we may need to resort to taking the second amendment in certain cases, for people like Sarah Palin to say we have people like Gabby Giffords in our crosshairs, they are irresponsible not without consequences and we be seeing the fruit of it here," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said on FOX News.