Free Republic

Rights: No longer fearing electoral revenge from the National Rifle Association, an outgoing Democratic Senate pushed to confirm an anti-Second Amendment radical, who thinks guns are a health issue, as the nation's top doc. A Democratic Senate that earlier balked at the nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy to be surgeon general of the U.S. no longer feared the possible electoral consequences of approving him in the wake of November's Republican tsunami. That, along with the GOP's obsession to not be blamed for a government shutdown, gave us a bad budget deal and the Democrats a chance to confirm Murthy. A...

Gun Control: To some, concern over a U.N. Arms Trade Treaty set to take effect Dec. 24 is much ado about nothing. But a president unconstrained by Congress or the Constitution may try to impose severe limits on gun rights. All treaties must be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, and that's not about to happen in the case of the unratified Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), particularly after the 2014 election that gave the GOP Senate control. The same, of course, could have been said about the Kyoto Protocol and other climate change deals that mandate that governments tie their...

Scandal: Documents obtained by a government watchdog group list emails between the attorney general and his wife regarding a White House statement on the "gun walking" scandal the White House wants kept secret. The release of the government's Vaughn Index of documents that the administration withheld from the House Oversight Committee's investigation of Fast and Furious may not be the October surprise that the Obama administration hoped for. It raises more questions than it answers and shows the absurd extent of the administration's cover-up. On July 18, U.S. District Court Judge John Bates ordered the Justice Department to produce, in...

Security: In a country with strict gun control and without a Second Amendment, an armed citizen stopped a terrorist attack as our neighbor to the north becomes a jihadi target. When Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, aka Michael Hall, was shot dead by Kevin Vickers, the House of Commons sergeant-at-arms, the jihadist wannabe and Muslim convert had already murdered Corporal Nathan Cirillo, a guard at Canada's National War Memorial, and was inside Canada's Parliament building, very near a room where Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with members of his Conservative Party. "PM (Harper) was addressing caucus, then a huge boom, followed...

Second Amendment: The administration's choice to be the nation's doctor in chief views gun ownership as a public health issue and not a constitutional right, and wants doctors to query patients about guns in their home.... ....gun-grabbing advocate Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy, Obama's nominee to be U.S. Surgeon General. Murthy is the 36-year-old president and co-founder of the anti-gun group Doctors for America, which advocates ObamaCare and gun control laws. His group, which has been dubbed "Docs vs. Glocks," has pushed Congress to ban "assault" weapons and "high-capacity" magazines.

Politics: More than two dozen House Democrats are pushing the Senate to revive and ratify the nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy to a critical post, but helping to fight deadly disease is not what they have in mind. The question of the day is why we have or need an Ebola czar in the form of political operative/hack Ron Klain when we have an unfilled surgeon general's position that physician emeritus serving as America's doctor is supposed to fill. We have an acting Surgeon General, Rear Admiral Boris Lushniak, but he is seemingly just a placeholder instead of the force...

The Islamic State has issued a global call to lone wolves. One could be standing behind you on the bus, walking next you at the mall or sitting in the next cubicle. In the age of the Islamic State and solo terrorism, gun-free zones are simply an invitation for a terrorist attack. In Moore, Okla., the life-saving value of the Second Amendment was proved once again. It may be our secret weapon in the ongoing war against terrorism.

Scandal: The attorney general who oversaw the administration's Fast and Furious gun-walking operation into Mexico resigns right after a federal court denies a DOJ request to delay releasing Fast And Furious documents. Eric Holder's resignation as attorney general, like anything that occurs in the Obama administration, raises questions of timing. Pundits ask why now, with some suggesting President Obama is getting a two-fer — ginning up his base with tributes to the first African-American AG before the midterms while starting the nomination and confirmation process before a possible Republican takeover of the Senate in November. Rush Limbaugh has even suggested...

More Guns, Less Crime: Since Illinois began issuing concealed-carry permits this year, robberies, burglaries, car thefts and, yes, even murder, are down significantly. Last month, when an 86-year-old Crestwood, Ill., man decided to visit his local phone store, he arrived to find a robbery underway. After staying outside to keep others from entering the store, he saw the suspect fleeing through a back door. He pursued the suspect, legal firearm in hand, stopped him, then held him until police arrived to make the arrest. The actions of the unidentified law-abiding citizen were made possible by Illinois becoming the 50th and...

Second Amendment: An African-American single mom on her way to a birthday party for one of her kids faces 10 years in prison for straying into the Garden State carrying a firearm in her purse licensed in Pennsylvania. Shaneen Allen is less well-known than Michael Brown, the man shot by police in Ferguson, Mo., and it's doubtful Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton will pay her a visit anytime soon. They're busy elsewhere. A mother exercising her Second Amendment right not only to keep but to bear arms to protect her family is of little interest to them. Allen is a...

Gun Control: A federal judge rules that the AR-15 and similar weapons commonly used in self-defense "fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual arms," and we have no right to keep or bear them. Nobody looted the gun shop and tattoo parlor that share a storefront in a strip mall less than 10 minutes from Ferguson, Mo., where riots followed the police shooting of Michael Brown. According to the local Riverfront Times, the owners of County Guns and Tattoo Studio arrived with friends to protect their businesses. One owner carried a rifle and pistol and wore a vest,...

Transparency: The Justice Department blocks a tell-all book by an ATF special agent on how Brian Terry, Jaime Zapata and hundreds of Mexican nationals were killed with weapons supplied by this administration. ATF Special Agent John Dodson is a national hero who in 2011 blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious, the Obama administration's gun-running operation to Mexico. Testifying before Congress, he disclosed that his supervisors had authorized the flow of semiautomatic weapons into Mexico instead of interdicting them, weapons that found their way into the hands of Mexican drug cartels with deadly results. Dodson has put his intimate...

Scandal: The truth about how and why Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata and hundreds of Mexican nationals were killed with weapons supplied by this administration may yet come out as a court lets a lawsuit proceed. The most transparent administration in history suffered a defeat Monday, when U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson turned down the Justice Department's request to dismiss a lawsuit seeking "Fast and Furious" documents hidden by Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department after President Obama invoked executive privilege. The lawsuit was brought by Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after...

Second Amendment: The Senate is unlikely to ratify a United Nations arms treaty signed by John Kerry, but gun control zealots will use it as justification for "common sense" infringements on our constitutional right. The secretary of state signed the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty on Wednesday despite repeated indications that it would be dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate. One warning was a letter from Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., that said the treaty would be rejected just like "other U.N.-sponsored treaties which threaten our country's sovereignty." Inhofe reminded Kerry that the pact would "collect dust alongside the Law...

Gun Crime: FBI statistics show Chicago, with one-third the population, passing New York City in the number of murders in 2012. Is it time for a national conversation about gang control vs. gun control? President Obama doesn't often mention his hometown when he talks about gun control. Then he'd have to explain, in arguably the most gun-restricted big city in America in the last state to allow concealed carry of firearms, why Chicago is now officially the murder capital of the United States. In new statistics released Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 500 murders in Chicago in 2012,...

Security: As the usual suspects call for stricter gun control, the fact remains that a gunman with two prior gun-crime arrests entered a secure military facility with a stolen ID and found no one able to shoot back. It was Fort Hood all over again. Aaron Alexis, a gunman whose prior behavioral warning signs were ignored, opens fire in an installation belonging to the most powerful military on Earth and those who protect our nation and design our weapons are not allowed to have a weapon to defend themselves. He was more equipped than the 12 people he killed on...

Law And Order: While urging the re-examination of state self-defense laws, then-state Sen. Barack Obama co-sponsored a bill nine years ago that stiffened Illinois' 1961 "stand your ground" law. So, he had it right the first time. 'Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago," the president said in his first on-camera response to the verdict exonerating neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman of the second-degree murder of Florida teen Trayvon Martin. "There are very few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping at a department store, and that includes...

Guns: Illinois has become the last state in the union to allow citizens their full Second Amendment rights, and officials in the murder capital of America worry about the consequences of citizens defending themselves. Illinois' legislature on Tuesday voted to let gun owners carry concealed weapons. The action followed a violent and bloody Fourth of July weekend in President Obama's hometown during which 74 people were shot and 12 were killed. Permission for concealed carry in Illinois was prompted by a ruling late last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. It found that...

Guns To Mexico: Once again blaming his own country for Mexico's gun violence without mentioning Fast and Furious, the gun runner in chief pledges to find and jail gun smugglers. Perhaps he should start with his own administration. 'We recognize that most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States. ... We'll keep increasing the pressure on the gun traffickers who bring illegal guns into Mexico, and we'll keep putting these criminals where they belong — behind bars," President Obama told students assembled at the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City on Friday, repeating...

Federal Power: Homeland Security's procurement officer is grilled in Congress on why federal agents who rarely fire weapons need several times more bullets annually than an Army officer. Who or what are they shooting at? Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz on Thursday asked Nick Nayak, DHS' chief procurement officer, a question we and others have been asking: Why has the Department of Homeland Security been buying so much ammunition? Dismissed as a concern only of right-wing conspiracy theorists, the reported amounts as high as 2 billion rounds have varied and been explained not as a one-time purchase but a bulk buy...