Free Republic

RICHMOND, Jan. 13 -- The Virginia State Crime Commission on Tuesday declined to endorse closing the so-called gun show loophole in Virginia law, heightening uncertainty about the prospects of success in the General Assembly. The deadlocked vote -- taken before a large crowd that included gun owners, at least one survivor of the Virginia Tech shootings and friends and relatives of other massacre victims -- highlighted an enduring split between country and city that transcends party affiliation in Virginia. Two key commission members bucked their parties' habitual views of gun control measures. The commission's chairman, Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax),...

A family whose lives were shattered by a mistaken police raid a year ago have been awarded a $612,498 settlement by the city of Minneapolis to make amends. -------------------------cut----------------- "It's only a mistake for them, but it changed our lives forever," Moua said Friday at a news conference held at Heffelfinger's office. "We want what's best for our children. It's a miracle we survived that night. No amount of money can fix what we went through that night." Acting on wrong information from an informant, a SWAT team broke into Vang Khang's north Minneapolis house last December expecting to find...

Las Vegas police officers served a search warrant at the Seven Hills home of Emmanuel Dozier on Panorama Ridge Drive in Henderson at about 9:30 last Sunday evening. The officers say they announced themselves, got no response, and opened fire to break the lock off the metal front door. At that point, the suspect, a 32-year-old sheet-metal worker, also opened fire. Three police officers were wounded. Mr. Dozier, who was suspected of cocaine trafficking and is now held in lieu of $3 million bail, says he thought it was a home invasion. "I want you to know something in your...

Look in later today for our On the Road piece from Wilmington, North Carolina. We're a bit ahead of our coverage, which occasionally happens out here with the long distances, input, output and timing demands. Tonight we'll be at the Obama-Clinton rally in Kissimmee, Florida, and we're breaking in from Miami, where John McCain just concluded his "Joe the Plumber" rally at Everglades Lumber. After the rally, we witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment...

Imagine If Obama Loses By One Vote, Liberals Warn Thursday, October 23, 2008 By Susan Jones, Senior Editor (CNSNews.com) – Imagine if Sen. Barack Obama loses the presidential election by one vote, and imagine if you were the person who meant to vote for him but never made it to the polls. Pretend it just happened. That’s the thrust of a new video from a liberal, pro-Obama group. As polls show the presidential race tightening in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Florida, MoveOn.org is pressing a get-out-the-vote message with a “funny, scary video” showing people “what it might look...

(GREEN BAY, Wisc.) As she continues to sharpen her attacks against her Democratic rivals, Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of not abiding by his campaign’s own mantra. "Now earlier today our opponent told his supporters to go out and argue with those who disagree with him,” Palin said. “He told them to get in your face, and you know, that doesn't sound like the politics of hope or the politics of change to me.” At a campaign event in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Obama did incite his supporters to argue with people who question his commitment to protecting the Second...

Dem cops cuff, stuff Christian girls Sidewalk chalk messages challenged Obama's moral positions ****************** Posted: August 29, 2008 12:30 am Eastern By Bob Unruh © 2008 WorldNetDaily DENVER – Two teenagers who had been given city permission to write their messages protesting Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's support for abortion on public sidewalks during the Democratic National Convention this week were shoved to the sidewalk, cuffed and arrested for doing just that. [SNIP] "I was peacefully sidewalk chalking when I was forcefully pushed to ground by a police officer from behind," Jayne White, 17, described. "As I was being...

Armed men in street clothes and masks kicked down the doors of innocent citizens, guns blazing, and rounded up the residents. When they left, the floors were smeared in blood. It reads like the first line of an intense novel, a Reuters story from Darfur or Zimbabwe, a history of the conflict in Kosovo, or a smuggled-out account of the Chinese pre-Olympics roundups. Recently deceased Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the scourge of the abusive Soviet leadership, could have written it. Sadly, it comes from far closer to home: Maryland’s Prince Georges County. Last week, the “PG County” Sheriff’s SWAT team stormed the...

He calls himself "Jimmy Justice," a self-styled "cop-arazzi," armed only with a video camera as he prowls the streets of New York looking for law enforcement officers who are breaking the law. His targets are illegally parked city government vehicles -- particularly cars of traffic cops blocking bus stops, sitting in "no parking" zones or double-parked. Cop cars blocking fire hydrants make him particularly incensed. "Something like that is just despicable," Jimmy fumed, pointing to a police enforcement vehicle parked next to a fire hydrant on 33rd Street on Manhattan's West Side on a muggy July afternoon. "They're never allowed...

LHASA, China—Police closed off Lhasa's Muslim quarter on Friday, two weeks after Tibetan rioters burned down the city's mosque amid the largest anti-Chinese protests in nearly two decades. Officers blockaded streets into the area, allowing in only residents and worshippers observing the Muslim day of prayer. A heavy security presense lingered in other parts of Lhasa's old city as clean-up crews waded through the destruction inflicted when days of initially peaceful protests turned deadly on March 14. It was not clear why the area was cordoned off, although rioters had prominently targeted businesses belonging to Chinese Muslim migrants known as...

Sorry if this has already been posted. They were talking about it on the air. The plan is for DC police officers to go house to house in certain areas and search for weapons and if any are found they will NOT prosecute. Last time I checked this was against the law.

Nearly a dozen members of a police SWAT team in western Colorado punched a hole in the front door and invaded a family's home with guns drawn, demanding that an 11-year-old boy who had had an accidental fall accompany them to the hospital, on the order of Garfield County Magistrate Lain Leoniak. The boy's parents and siblings were thrown to the floor at gunpoint and the parents were handcuffed in the weekend assault, and the boy's father told WND it was all because a paramedic was upset the family preferred to care for their son themselves. Someone, apparently the unidentified...

'He really abused me,' resident says after arrest by Orem police officer OREM - Two days after Independence Day, 70-year-old Betty Perry experienced an ordeal she said shouldn't be happening in America. The retired military and U.S. government employee answered the door at her home Friday morning to talk with a police officer about her bone-dry lawn and ended up getting arrested and suffering a bloody nose. "What have I done?" she asked. "I'm old now. I can't believe this." The Orem police officer, as yet unnamed by city officials, cited Perry for violating a city ordinance with her "sadly...

Red's Trading Post in Twin Falls, Idaho, is the state's oldest gun shop, opened since 1936. In 2004, a routine BATFE audit revealed minor clerical errors. According to Red's, out of nearly ten THOUSAND firearms transferred between 1996 and 2004, the alleged error rate did not even reach 1%. Even the BATFE acknowledges these are minor paperwork errors -- there are no missing firearms and no willful illegal acts.And yet the BATFE has revoked the ability of Red's Trading Post to acquire firearms for resale, although they're still permitted to sell the firearms in stock ... for now. But that's...

TWIN FALLS - Red's Trading Post, one of Idaho's oldest gun shops, can trade no longer. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has revoked the business's license to buy, trade or obtain guns after an ATF audit found Red's employees sold guns improperly numerous times between 1999 and 2004. Red's manager, Ryan Horsley, admits when the business sold guns it sometimes left blank required parts of a gun purchase form, omitted a background check on a special order, failed to log multiple handgun sales to the same customer in five working days, did not keep track of...

Radley Balko, who has tirelessly publicized the problems created by the promiscuous use of SWAT teams, reports that federal police in Atlanta have used a SWAT team to help the recording industry enforce copyright law. Even worse, the target wasn't even a commercial piracy operation: Last night, a federal SWAT team assisted the RIAA in a raid on the studio of Atlanta musician DJ Drama. This local news report says the locally famous mixtape DJ is under investigation for piracy. But Drama's supporters say the DJ is a mix artist, not a bootlegger. They say news footage of the raid...

A wave of immigration raids in Concord, Pacheco and west Contra Costa County has prompted a local Latino advocacy group to file a complaint. Officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, falsely identified themselves as police, refused to show identification proving their agency affiliation and prevented detainees from taking prescription medication with them, according to a draft of a complaint by the League of United Latin American Citizens. The league also claims that agents wrongfully searched apartments of Latinos without permission under the pretext of picking up those with outstanding warrants, said Jerry Okendo, president of the league's Bay...

92-year-old woman was killed after she shot three Atlanta narcotics officers Tuesday night when they broke down the front door of her home trying to serve a search warrant, police said. One officer was hit in the arm, one was struck in the shoulder, and one was shot in the thigh. All were rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital, where they were in stable condition late Tuesday night. Police did not release their identities.

[...] Organizers blasted the federal Drug Enforcement Administration for targeting businesses that are legal under Proposition 215, a California law that permits marijuana use for medical treatment. Demonstrators said the action would restrict access to regulated pot shops for seriously ill patients. [...] "They didn't do any arrests, just took drugs and computers," said Paula "Cookey" Brown. "It just seems like a straight armed robbery." [...]

Two of the Moss Landing Harbor residents who were the subjects of random boat searches during Labor Day Weekend say their experiences were closer to armed invasions than the friendly "safety inspections" characterized by U.S. Coast Guard officials. Both residents said search crews entered the harbor in inflatable boats with machine guns mounted on their bows. Then, carrying M-16 rifles, they approached residents and boarded and searched their boats in the name of safety and "homeland security." One resident, who asked not to be identified for fear or retribution, said his experience was "very intimidating, very frightening." "To me it...