Free Republic

Does your state support your 2nd Amendment rights – or make it exceedingly difficult to keep and bear arms? We’ve ranked the worst states to be a gun owner by analyzing each state’s current laws, upcoming laws, concealed carry guidelines, self-defense statutes, and 2A-centric taxes. #1 Hawaii #2 California #3 New York #4 Illinois #5 New Jersey #6 Connecticut #7 Maryland #8 Massachusetts #9 Rhode Island #10 Michigan #11 Washington #12 Minnesota #13 Colorado #14 Nebraska #15 New Mexico #16 Pennsylvania #17 Oregon #18 Delaware #19 Wisconsin #20 Vermont #21 Virginia #22 Nevada #23 Ohio #24 Maine #25 North Carolina

GOA and the Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), along with plaintiffs, Carl Higbie, Joseph Harris, and Michael Votruba, who live in border states and have a license to carry in those states, filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of New York challenging New York state’s prohibition on both granting concealed carry permits for non-residents and granting reciprocity for those permits from other states.

Gun owners didn’t get complete vindication from a three-judge panel on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, but the panel did uphold injunctions on several important parts of New York’s “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” in a decision released Friday morning. The state’s default ban on carrying on private property cannot be enforced, according to the court, along with its social media disclosure requirement for concealed carry applicants. The court also ruled that New York’s ban on lawful concealed carry in places of worship cannot be enforced against Pastor Michael Spencer and the members of the Tabernacle Family Church, though other...

Washington Gun Law President, William Kirk, discusses a recent video that has been kicking around in the virtual universe which shows an elderly gentleman get surrounded by an angry mob of pro-Palestinian protestors who decided to start smashing his car. This leads us to one of the most common questions we get here at Washington Gun Law which is what can you do when you find you and your car surrounded by an angry mob? The answer is much more complicated than you might think so learn more and arm yourself with education today.Reviewer: It’s astounding that we’ve reached a...

ASHINGTON—Zackey Rahimi pulled a gun on his ex-girlfriend in a parking lot and shot at a witness who saw them arguing, prompting a Texas family court to issue a protective order in 2020 temporarily forbidding him from possessing firearms. Rahimi ignored the order, authorities say, going on to threaten another woman with a gun, fire an AR-15 into the house of one of his narcotics customers, and shoot into the air at a Whataburger drive-through after his friend’s credit card was declined. That led to his conviction under a 1994 federal law prohibiting people under domestic-violence orders from possessing guns—and...

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said Thursday he negotiated a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on an amendment allowing military veterans whose finances go into conservatorship to keep their firearms, a proposal Schumer previously called a “poison pill” to the Senate’s minibus appropriations bill. Kennedy’s effort to get a vote on his amendment had held up the bill funding military construction and the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. Now, the Louisiana senator said he expects to get a vote on his proposal after he agreed to modify the language. As a result,...

• In 2021, there were 10,048 injury-related deaths (individuals between the ages <1-17). 2,590 of those deaths involved firearms. • 62% of child injury-related deaths included mechanisms other than firearms in 2021. • Firearms accounted for less than 25% of all injury-related juvenile deaths in 2021. • 1,590 adolescents nationwide committed suicide in 2021. Of those, 790 suicides involved firearms. • There were 2,220 homicides among the <1-17 age group in 2021. Firearms were suspected in 1,503 of those homicides. • There were 161 more adolescent homicides (all methods) in 2021 than in 2020. • There were 93 school shootings...

The National Rifle Association hit Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with a lawsuit Thursday in the state's Supreme Court over an "unconstitutional" rule temporarily suspending open and concealed carry across Albuquerque and the surrounding county. "Please rescind your unlawful and blatantly unconstitutional orders and uphold your oath to defend the constitutional rights of those in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. Until then, we’ll see you in court," NRA-ILA Executive Director Randy Kozuch wrote to Lujan Grisham on Thursday, according to a letter exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital. The suit, filed Thursday in the New Mexico Supreme Court, names...

Former prosecutor Andy McCarthy wrote a column this week suggesting New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham should face federal charges under the same statute the Justice Department is using to charge former President Donald Trump over her move to suspend constitutional gun rights in her state In a National Review column Monday, McCarthy, a Fox News contributor and former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, explained that Section 241 of the federal penal code, which is being used by Special Counsel Jack Smith to charge Trump, could be used for Grisham. "If two or more...

The sheer volume of firearms in the United States is a point of contention for almost every American. Some believe we have too few, while others believe we have too many. Nonetheless, firearms are a large part of American culture. We value our liberties, the natural right to self-defense, the inherent check on state power an armed populace offers, and the heritage which we pass down from generation to generation. Whether an individual defines freedom as a life without firearms or a life without government interference, we can all agree that some states do not support gun ownership. Whether it's...

In a shocking and largely unprecedented move, New Mexico Gov. Michell Lujan Grisham "suspended" gun rights on Friday, citing an emergency declaration for "gun violence" she had signed the day prior. The move immediately overrode duly passed open and concealed carry laws in Albuquerque, the state's largest city. According to Grisham, she will review the order every 30 days and make a decision on extending it. Under the order, other cities within New Mexico could also see their gun rights stripped depending on their levels of violent crime. When pressed on the legality of the situation, Grisham responded by saying...

FIRST ON FOX: The U.S. now has a majority of states with constitutional carry laws on the books after Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law Monday that eliminates the requirement for an individual to obtain a permit to carry a concealed firearm. "The NRA applauds Florida for becoming the 26th state to adopt the vital Constitutional Carry legislation. This NRA-spearheaded initiative empowers Floridians to exercise their Second Amendment rights without undue bureaucratic barriers, affirming the fundamental right to self-defense," NRA-ILA Interim Executive Director Randy Kozuch exclusively told Fox News Digital in a statement. The Florida Senate...

There are few people who can quite express what it’s like to need a firearm when a mob is chasing you like Kyle Rittenhouse. As a 17-year-old, he found himself in that situation and pulled the trigger when he needed to. Some claim he didn’t, but a jury of his peers found otherwise, and to be honest, it never should have gotten that far. Since then, he’s sort of enjoyed the life of a celebrity in political circles. After all, he was to be sacrificed on the altar of political necessity, only he actually slipped away again. Now, he’s turning...

Gun control wasn’t the only issue that led to the Republican minority walking out and denying Democrats a quorum for six weeks, but it was one of the key sticking points for those lawmakers who deployed the last-ditch tactic this session. Now the walkout is over, an agreement between the GOP and Democratic leadership is in place, and most of the anti-gun measures that Democrats had prioritized are off the table. "In a major boon for Republicans, Democrats agreed to significant concessions, including key changes to controversial reproductive health care and gun control bills in order to convince the conservative...

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to change the Constitution to curb gun rights.Fed up with inaction on gun control, Newsom unveiled a proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution on Thursday that would implement "common sense" gun safety measures he claims have widespread bipartisan support..The Democratic governor's proposed 28th Amendment would not abolish the Second Amendment, which establishes a right to bear firearms for personal self-defense. However, it would raise the federal minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21; mandate universal background checks to purchase firearms; institute a waiting period for all gun purchases; and ban "assault...

The U.S. government cannot ban people convicted of non-violent crimes from possessing guns, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The 11-4 ruling from the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest defeat for gun control laws in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year expanding gun rights nationwide. The decision stems from a 2020 lawsuit by a Pennsylvania man, Bryan Range, who was barred under federal law from possessing a gun after pleading guilty to welfare fraud. He claimed the prohibition violated his right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the...

CHICAGO — A newly acquired video shows four people, at least two armed with machine guns, unleashing a torrent of gunfire in Chicago on Wednesday evening. The shots left a 14-year-old boy dead and at least three others injured. Later, a 16-year-old boy fired a gun at Chicago police officers as they investigated the shooting. He was charged yesterday with six counts of attempted murder of peace officers. The video, provided to CWBChicago by a source, shows four people walking across a vacant lot in the 4200 block of South Wells around 8:20 p.m. on June 1.

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) pistol brace rule that would see millions of Americans become felons overnight was dealt another devastating blow in a Texas District Court. Gun Owners of America (GOA), Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), and the state of Texas successfully won a preliminary injunction (PI) against the new regulation. “For these reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction, (Dkt. No. 16). Defendants are ENJOINED from enforcing the Final Rule against the private Plaintiffs in this case, including its current members and their resident family members, and individuals employed directly by the...

Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case about commercial fishing that raises an issue the current members of the Court have been very interested in as of late—Chevron Deference. With the Court agreeing to hear the case, there has been a lot of speculation about what the end of Chevron may mean across the legal landscape. But what might it mean for gun rights? First, it’s important to understand what Chevron Deference is. Chevron, as it’s not-so-affectionately called among legal circles, is a doctrine that was established by the Supreme Court in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense...

I’ve seen a lot of dumb arguments from anti-gunners over the years, many of them repeated ad nauseam, so I’ll give Naperville, Illinois and its attorneys a small amount of credit for their originality in defending the city’s ban on so-called assault weapons in its latest filing with the Seventh Circuit. But from a legal perspective, the city’s claim that the right to keep and bear arms extends only to handguns is downright silly, not to mention contradicted by several Supreme Court opinions. [Tweet by Firearms Policy Coalition:] "Naperville: "In short, nothing in Heller or Bruen suggests that the Second...