Free Republic

A high school student in Connecticut is accusing administrators of political censorship after the school restricted access to conservative news outlets and websites while allowing students to visit liberal sites. Andrew Lampart, a student at Nonnewaug High School in Woodbury, Connecticut, was assigned an in-class debate on gun-control during his "Law & You" course. While preparing for the debate during study hall Lampart logged onto the school provided Internet and found out that students were forbidden from visiting The National Association for Gun Rights website or the news outlet TheBlaze.com. "I used my study hall to research gun control facts...

WASHINGTON — A gun-control organization led by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, outlined plans Tuesday to support candidates in at least 11 congressional races this year who have backed efforts in Congress to enact stricter gun control laws. Americans for Responsible Solutions said it will support a slate of nine Democrats and two Republicans in 2014 — and perhaps more. The group has raised about $14.5 million since it was founded in January 2013 and plans to spend money on television and online advertising and direct mail to help the list of mostly incumbent...

The Obama administration, after failing to get gun control passed on Capitol Hill, has resorted to using its executive power to try to put some in the firearms industry out of business, House Republican investigators say. The assertion is included in a report recently released by California GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Citing internal Justice Department documents, the committee concluded that the administration used a program known as Operation Choke Point to target legal companies that it finds “objectionable.” The program was started in 2013 to protect consumers by “choking” alleged fraudsters’...

Put yourself in a criminal’s position. You feel like shooting and killing a bunch of people, and you want to be met with as little opposition as possible. If you go to a place that allows concealed carry, there’s a risk that someone could take you out before you start shooting, and that’s a risk you don’t want to take. Naturally, you’d go to a place that has heavy restrictions on gun-carriers. That’ll pretty much guarantee that no one will be able to fight back, and you’d be able to shoot and kill as many as you want. And then...

Straight away let’s address an issue that is very important in what follows: Eyewitness evidence is often very unreliable and hearsay evidence is often very unreliable. Numerous biological, psychological, and sociological processes can distort both perception and its verbal translation. There are individual differences among persons that affect their ability to accurately gather and report information, and circumstances, such as stress and alarm, can operate either alone or in conjunction with those differences to compromise the validity of witness statements. And yet, there is no gainsaying the fact that even broken clocks are right twice a day. Furthermore, there is...

<p>On May 24, the family of Santa Barbara shooting suspect Elliot Rodger released a statement through their attorney saying they are "against guns" and support gun control.</p>

Now that it has passed the New Jersey Assembly, a new law intended to restrict the rights of gun owners heads to the desk of Governor Chris Christie. It’s being billed as legislation to “restrict magazine size” in the Garden State. The New Jersey state Assembly on Thursday sent Governor Chris Christie a gun control bill that would limit the capacity of gun ammunition magazines, but it was unclear whether the Republican governor would sign the measure into law… The bill, approved in the Assembly by a 44-34 vote, would cut the maximum capacity of gun magazines to 10 from...

On May 24, the family of Santa Barbara shooting suspect Elliot Rodger released a statement through their attorney saying they are "against guns" and support gun control. On May 23, their son allegedly shot and killed 7 people, including himself, and wounded 7 others. Breitbart News reported his motive was "retribution" for women who had rejected his advances.

At a heated Knesset debate Tuesday, MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beytenu) accused the supporters of legislation limiting the carrying of firearms by citizens of a deliberate move to limit citizens’ ability to defend themselves against nationalistic and criminal threats. The Knesset’s Interior Committee convened under the chairmanship of MK David Tzur (Hatnua), was presented with data according to which, in the course of a decade, 12 women had been murdered by their spouses with licensed guns—11 of them with guns held by security guards in institutions and businesses. The bill would require gun holders to be checked by a psychologist every...

A Republican challenging Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) apologized Monday for saying a vast majority of the perpetrators of mass shootings are Democrats. At a candidate forum on Saturday, rancher Gary Kiehne said, "If you look at all the fiascos that have occurred, 99 percent of them have been by Democrats pulling their guns out and shooting people," The Arizona Daily Star reported. "So I don't think you have a problem with the Republicans," Kiehne added, according to the paper.

These days, reboots are all the rage in film. Now it’s believed that Fast & Furious director Justin Lin has his eyes set on a Lethal Weapon reboot. If that news isn’t exciting on its own, then it’s who he has his sights set on that should really be the talk of the industry. The Tracking Board reports that Lin wants none other than Thor’s Chris Hemsworth to take the lead role in the upcoming reboot for Lethal Weapon. As some of you may or should know, Australian actor Mel Gibson took the title role of Martin Riggs, and it...

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday the nation’s gun culture has gotten “way out of balance” and the U.S. needs to rein in the notion that “anybody can have a gun, anywhere, anytime.” The former Secretary of State and potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate said the idea that anyone can have a gun is not in the “best interest of the vast majority of people.” But she said that approach does not conflict with the rights of people to own firearms. …

Responding to Georgia's new "guns everywhere" law, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta has pledged to keep guns out of Catholic churches, schools and other institutions. ..."Before this legislation takes effect in July, I will officially restrict the presence of weapons in our Catholic institutions except for those carried by the people that civic authorities have designated and trained to protect and guard us, and those who are duly authorized by law and military officials," Gregory wrote. ...Georgia has always banned licensed weapons in churches, but the new legislation drops the penalty to a $100 fine and the legal charge to...

Have we gone stark raving mad? The question is brought to mind by the gun law signed last week in Georgia by Gov. Nathan Deal. You might have thought that since the United States couldn’t possibly have more permissive firearms laws than it does now, nothing more could be done to coddle the gun lobby and tip the balance of our statutes away from law enforcement. Alas, you would be wrong. -snip- Oh yes, and while conservatives claim to hate the centralization of power, this law wipes out a series of local gun regulations. The gun supremacists just don’t trust...

Zero tolerance strikes again, with a vengeance: A Maryland high school expelled a well-behaved 18-year-old student who accidentally brought a shotgun onto school property because he left it in his car after returning from a hunting trip. The student, 18-year-old Patrick Bryan Mitchell, was expelled from South River High School. He was also arrested by county police and received a mugshot. He is barred from possessing a gun for a year. He missed his senior lacrosse season, several weeks of school, and his chances at an athletic scholarship to Pfeiffer College were crushed. He was forced to drop out of...

John Paul Stevens served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1975 to 2010. This essay is excerpted from his new book, “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution.” Following the massacre of grammar-school children in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012, high-powered weapons have been used to kill innocent victims in more senseless public incidents. Those killings, however, are only a fragment of the total harm caused by the misuse of firearms. Each year, more than 30,000 people die in the United States in firearm-related incidents. Many of those deaths involve handguns.

Eighteen countries, including five of the world’s leading arms exporters, ratified a landmark treaty regulating the multibillion-dollar global arms trade on Wednesday, giving a significant boost to the campaign for the treaty’s entry into force. […] Five of the world’s top 10 arms exporters—Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain—turned in their ratification documents at the ceremony. The other 13 were Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Among the hold-outs is the United States, the world’s largest weapons exporter. The Obama administration has signed the treaty but there is strong resistance in...

Many leftist politicians who want to strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights say their position is based on concern for the safety of citizens. Somehow, they contend, forcing law-abiding gun-owners to give up their weapons will result in street gangs following suit. According to a recently unsealed affidavit, however, one state senator in California allegedly wanted to curtail gun rights for everyone except violent gangsters. State Sen. Leland Yee, the court documents state, was the subject of an FBI raid that led to his arrest Wednesday along with 25 other individuals. Among those arrested was Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow,...

Angered by Georgia's pending expansion of concealed carry laws within state lines, liberal radio host Mike Malloy said he'd like to invite an NRA board member to come meet him, then shoot the board member and claim "Stand Your Ground" in defense. The Georgia bill--the Safe Carry Protection Act--has passed the state House and Senate but still awaits the governor's signature. It would expand concealed carry into schools, bars, churches, and the portions of airports that are outside the security parameter. According to Newbusters, Malloy's reaction to the bill's passage was: [The] organization founded by Gabrielle Giffords...the former Arizona Congresswoman...who...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Keith Jackson, accused by the FBI on Wednesday of being involved in a murder-for-hire scheme and a gun- and drug-trafficking conspiracy, was San Francisco's top elected educator during the late 1990s.