Free Republic

One puzzling characteristic of citizen disarmament advocates is their bizarre apparent belief that "gun violence" is somehow "worse" than other forms of violence. One would think that being stabbed, beaten, bludgeoned, strangled, etc. to death would be just as bad as being shot to death, but apparently that's not a universally held belief. I was reminded of this peculiar attitude yesterday when reading "New York's Gun Battle," an article in the Gotham Gazette about current attempts to make gun laws in New York state even more restrictive than they are now (the Brady Campaign ranks New York the 6th most...

Feds: Gun Smugglers Keep Cartels Heavily Armed An all-out war is raging in Mexico, and it is major news on both sides of the border. In 2008, 6,000 Mexicans were killed in gang warfare. In the first two months of 2009, more than a thousand people were gunned down in Mexico as the government intensifies it's war to bring down the narcotrafficking cartels. Mexican police officers are out-gunned by the firepower cartel gangsters are wielding, and bodies turn up tortured to death on the streets of Juarez and Tijuana on a regular basis. In the most gruesome new terror tactic...

'No Fly, No Buy' for Guns Bill Proposed by Rep. McCarthy User Rating: / 19 PoorBest Politics - Capitol Hill Written by Timothy Robertson Wednesday, 13 May 2009 13:32 Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) is co-sponsoring a House of Representatives bill preventing people on the government's no-fly list from purchasing guns. House representatives will introcude a bill Wednesday that would ban anyone on the controversial no-fly list from purchasing a gun in the U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), a strong gun control advocate, is co-sponsoring the legislation that would apply to the nearly 1 million people that make up the government’s no-fly...

They can kill from more than four football fields away, shred police officers' vests, fire up to 75 bullets at a time - and they're increasingly showing up in criminals' hands. Last year, Fort Wayne Police seized 31 semiautomatic rifles, compared with two in 2003, the last year of the federal assault weapons ban that limited the sale of the rifles. The seizure increase and more reports of criminals using the rifles concerns Fort Wayne Police Chief Rusty York. “The fact that we have these relatively cheap, assault weapon-type firearms out there, it's not only a hazard to the public,...

A citizen with a “concealed-carry” handgun license shot out a tire on a car full of fleeing shoplifters, then followed them in his own vehicle Wednesday morning, helping Azle police apprehend four people who were subsequently charged with robbery. Police officers from at least three agencies caught up with everyone in a neighborhood behind Allsup’s convenience store off Highway 199 west of Azle. Four accused shoplifters had been spotted by employees of Albertsons grocery store and were attempting a getaway with less than $50 worth of miscellaneous items when they were spotted by a citizen in the parking lot. The...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein recently said that she will pick the time, she will pick the place and she will bring back the failed Clinton gun ban. And she said President Obama will sign it. Most of the media has swept it under the rug, like always. But they can't deny it any longer and there's no doubt about it. They're coming after every law-abiding gun owner in America. They want your name and personal information in a federal database. That's right - national registration of all firearms. The Speaker of the House - Nancy Pelosi - fully admitted her gun...

We keep waiting everyday to see stories that the Obama induced run on buying guns, magazines, and ammunition has stopped, or even slowed down. It hasn't. It doesn't even seem to be on the foreseeable horizon. When is that article coming? Apparently no time soon. I find 3 or 4 stories every day lamenting the lack of merchandise and continuing runs on it. If you visit your local shooting range you will even probably see that there are a lot fewer target shooters. They are holding on to what they have. Its getting to expensive to shoot like we used...

A quick tour through the week’s headlines suggests the Republican Party is beginning to come to terms with the last election and that consensus is emerging among GOP elites that the party needs to move away from discordant social issues. There was Sen. John McCain's daughter and his campaign manager who last week demanded that their fellow Republicans embrace same-sex marriage. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman – the most devoted modernizer among the party's 2012 hopefuls – won approving words from New York Times columnist Frank Rich for his call to downplay divisive values issues. The party’s top elected leaders in...

WASHINGTON - Campaigning before a church congregation on Chicago’s South Side one Sunday in July 2007, Barack Obama said an epidemic of big city violence was “sickening the soul of this nation.” Among the potential cures, he said, was permanently reinstating a ban on assault weapons. One-hundred days into his presidency, President Obama says it remains a goal. But it is one the White House has been forced to abandon.

A new Public Policy Polling survey has some interesting findings concerning Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R): While 76% of Republican voters have a favorable opinion of her, 21% say they would rather vote for President Obama if she became the Republican party presidential nominee in 2012. In a head-to-head match up, Obama would beat Palin, 53% to 41%. The survey also shows Obama beating Mike Huckabee, 49% to 42%, Newt Gingrich, 52% to 39%, and Mitt Romney, 50% to 39%.

On Tuesday, April 28, the Senate Public Safety Committee will hear Senate Bill 697. SB697, authored by State Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-7), would prohibit the sale of handguns other than "owner-authorized (or ‘smart’) handguns" -- that is, handguns with a permanent, programmable biometric feature that renders the firearm useless unless activated by the authorized user. No proven, viable handgun of this type has ever been developed. The bill would require the California Attorney General to report to the Governor and Legislature on the availability of owner-authorized handguns; once the Attorney General finds that these guns are available, only “owner-authorized” handguns...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 34% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-two percent (32%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +2 (see trends). On the Generic Congressional Ballot, it’s all tied—39% for the Democrats, 39% for the Republicans. Most voters continue to believe that the financial and auto bailouts were a bad idea, but the Political Class disagrees. Sixty percent (60%) now believe the federal government has too much power and too much money. The Presidential...

Obama Repeats '90 Percent' Stat for U.S. Guns Recovered in Mexico The White House stands by the president's use of the word "recovered" in describing the role firearms smuggled from the U.S. play in Mexico's drug war. By Major Garrett FOXNews.com Sunday, April 19, 2009 PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago -- What's the difference between "recovered" and "traceable" when it comes to firearms seized in Mexico's bloody war against drug cartels? The White House says none. But that's a distinction with a difference, even if President Obama used the words interchangeably last week to talk about the role firearms smuggled from...

Despite dire predictions that America's streets would be awash in military-style guns, the expiration of the decade-long assault weapons ban in September has not set off a sustained surge in the weapons' sales, gun makers and sellers say. It also has not caused any noticeable increase in gun crime in the past seven months, according to several city police departments. The uneventful expiration of the assault weapons ban did not surprise gun owners, nor did it surprise some advocates of gun control. Rather, it underscored what many of them had said all along: that the ban was porous - so...