Free Republic

Every one of the 50 states has some kind of firearms preemption law.   This makes perfect sense, as otherwise each town, county, and local government could enact a local ordinance to invalidate your right to keep and bear arms.   You could easily be placed in jail for an inadvertent violation of an ordinance that you never knew existed, just because you crossed an invisible political boundary.  Michigan has such a law.   MCL 123.1101(a) and MCL 123.1102 preempt local units of government from regulating firearms. School Districts are local units of government.  In Michigan, a number of school districts are...

Governor Rick Snyder has signed the concealed carry reform bills into law. Governor Snyder, who vetoed virtually the same bills only six weeks ago, signed them just hours ago.  Senate Bills 34 and 35 are now Public acts 3 and 4 of 2015.    The bills had passed with strong, veto proof majorities in both the House and Senate. County gun boards are eliminated by the bills, with a number of other reasonable reforms.   The gun boards were put in place in 1927.   In 1925, a black man, Dr. Ossian Sweet, had used a handgun to defend his family...

Both houses of the Michigan legislature have passed their signature gun reform legislation.  The bills will be sent to Governor Snyder again.  In January, the Governor vetoed nearly identical bills over minor parts that had been trumpeted in the media as significant.   The legislature took out the minor parts of the bill that the media had objected to, and quickly passed the nearly identical legislation by large, vet-proof margins.  The bills make a large number of small changes to the administration of the concealed carry law, effectively making the law uniform state wide, and doing away with the 1920s...

L On January 15, 2015, Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder vetoed gun reform legislation that had strong support in the legislature.   Snyder cited concerns that were drummed up in a media campaign by the bill's opponents.  The bills sponsors consistently said that the complaints were baseless.  To obtain the governor's signature, the new legislature has removed the small bit of the legislation that Governor Snyder objected to, and passed the new bill, known as SB34 with over a 3-1 vote.  From mlive.com: LANSING, MI -- Michigan's Republican-led Senate on Tuesday, in its first official vote of the 2015-16 session, approved...

Over a year ago James Andrew Smith was charged with attempted murder of the mother of his daughter.  He was found not guilty on Tuesday, 13 January, by a jury. They must have found his self defense story plausible.  From 2014 mlive.com: FLINT, MI -- A jury has found an East Lansing man not guilty after he was accused of shooting the mother of his then-2-year-old daughter during a child custody exchange at a vacant Vienna Township gas station. He did not dispute that he had shot Ginger Don, the mother.  His attorney is quoted:  Smith's attorney, Mary Chartier-Mittendorf,...

Non-Muslim ‘no-entry’ zones have been multiplying all over Europe, and even popping up in cities here in the U.S. This should heighten every American’s awareness of the imminent danger we as a nation face. Once established, they are unsafe, and proving deadly for non-Muslims to inhabit or even to walk through the neighborhood.< These signs are being placed all over the UKParts of the UK have already become ‘no-go’ areas for police because minority communities are operating their own justice systems, according to the Chief Inspector of Constabulary.Honor killings, domestic violence, sexual abuse of children and female genital mutilations are...

Frustrated with a lack of public transportation and in desperate need to reach a certain destination, a homeless man stole an ambulance from a hospital in Pontiac on Sunday. “He told the deputy he was hoping to go to the Booby Trap to see some pole dancing,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said. “You can’t make this up.” The man, who hoped to make it to the Detroit strip club but was stopped by police in Sterling Heights, was asked why he took the ambulance. “Apparently he said there was no public transportation available,” Bouchard said. “Again, you can’t make...

Hall Of Heroes': Michigan School Replaces Mural With Paintings Of Oprah, Obama, And Other Celebrities Michigan parents are infuriated that the “Hall of Heroes” mural depicting historical figures at South Arbor Charter Academy has been replaced with paintings of Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, and other celebrities. South Arbor Charter Academy in Ypsilanti, Michigan, removed the likes of Albert Einstein, Betsy Ross, Gandhi, astronauts, Mother Teresa, and other accomplished historical figures and replaced their images with those of Oprah, Obama, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and J.K. Rowling. “This is no longer a hall of heroes. Now we have a hall of...

MI Realtor with CCW permit Michigan Poll:  Would you be more comfortable shopping for a home if you knew your Realtor was carrying a gun? Note the tortured structure of this poll.  Not "Would it bother you if your Realtor carried a gun?  Not  "Do you think Realtors should be able to carry guns?" I think the clearest question would be "Would you prefer that your Realtor  be unarmed?" But the question is what it is.   The results so far are as follows: Would you be more comfortable shopping for a home if you knew your Realtor was carrying...

In Michigan, it is legal for people who have a concealed carry permit to openly carry firearms on school grounds and into schools.   It is illegal for them to carry concealed firearms on  school grounds or into schools.   Some second amendment supporters have exercised their rights by carrying their personal defensive firearms openly while picking up their children or visiting schools for other reasons.  Banning guns from schools is a relatively recent  phenomena.  The idea started being pushed about 1990.   There was never any validity to it as a safety measure.   Mass shootings in schools have only gone up...

Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI) has launched a new advertisement that falsely claims GOP candidate Terri Lynn Land wants to cut women’s access to various female health services. The new ad comes as Peters and his campaign have completely publicly ignored an investigation by Breitbart News into Peters’ military background, in which documents and interviews with military leaders—including one of Peters’ former commanding officers—have shown that he fabricated much of his service record for political gain on the campaign trail. “This is an important election for women,” a woman in the Peters campaign ad says. “And...

Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI) has exaggerated and misrepresented his military service record on the campaign trail for U.S. Senate in Michigan, military community leaders including one of his former commanding officers told Breitbart News for an exclusive investigative report. Peters’ military service record jacket, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from the Department of the Navy and provided exclusively to Breitbart News, shows a man who had a broken service record that was substandard, one of his indirect commanding officers, retired Navy Commander Jim Semerad, said in an interview with Breitbart News. “Gary was pretty much a warm...

Consistent: The topline results — Republicans are ahead. Inconsistent: The margins. NPR measures Obama’s job approval at (41/56) in states with contested Senate races, and an abysmal (29/67) among independents. But on the generic Senate ballot, the GOP leads by just three, fueled by a 16-point advantage among those aforementioned independents: In case you’re curious, NPR’s partisan sample is a reasonable, if slightly generous, D+4. Fox News’ pollster included two more states in their survey, but excluded Alaska. Results: Unless I’m missing something glaringly obvious (Fox’s poll sample is D+0, in line with 2010), I can’t quite wrap my...

The Iowa, Colorado, Kansas and North Carolina Senate races, to name four, are getting plenty of attention. But keep an eye on Michigan where in a blue state GOP candidate Terri Lynn Land is in a statistical tie with Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.). RealClearPolitics has the race as a tossup, with the last two public polls showing Peters with a 2 or 3 point lead. Charlie Cook also shows the race to be a tossup.

Jeremy Hoven is a pharmacist who worked at Walgreens in Benton Township, Michigan.   He had complained about security at the store after a robbery in 2007, and had obtained a concealed carry permit.   In 2011, at 4:30 a.m. on May 8th, he defended himself against armed robbers who had entered the store, taken a manager hostage, and who had tried to shoot him.   It was all captured on a dramatic video.   Link to Video  Halfway down article A local police Lt. said that he would have done the same thing.  From abcnews.go.com: Township police Lt. Delman Lange, after...

GREENVILLE, Mich.- A 28-year-old man is dead after a fight inside a home Saturday morning in Greenville. According to Greenville Dept. of Public Safety Director Mark Reiss, officers in the area of the 100 block of S. Barry Street heard a single gunshot around 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning. When officers arrived on scene, they found a 28-year-old man from Gowen deceased on the floor, naked. The man had been shot by the homeowner.

A recent “fact check” from the Michigan Truth Squad, a project of the Center for Michigan, takes a look at an ad from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer attacking Gov. Rick Snyder. In its analysis of K-12 state funding, the truth-checkers state, “In his first year in office, Snyder approved a budget that resulted in school funding $930 million lower than the previous year.” For the Record: The Truth Squad cites a Senate Fiscal Agency report, but they do not include $455.5 million in additional state funding used for “best practices” and retiree benefit costs. That amount is listed in...

A gunfight erupted in Detroit as a neighbor interrupted the theft of the catalytic converter from a minivan.   The neighbor came out with a long gun, which appeared to be a Mossberg single shot bolt action shotgun, based on the shape of the trigger guard and bolt.  The underside of the long gun showed the lack of a magazine.     From clickondetroit.com: A man spotted two crooks stealing the catalytic converter from his neighbor's Chevrolet Venture. He came out armed with a gun, hoping to scare them away. Police say the men took off toward their car, fired shots...

There will be a gun turn in event in Benton Harbor, Michigan, on Saturday, 23 August,  2014.  While these events are commonly labeled with the propaganda term "buyback" the guns were never owned by the people attempting to buy them. The event will be held at Berrien County Health Department Environmental Health building, 2106 S. M-139, Benton Harbor; and the Niles Berrien County Health Department office at 1205 N. Front St.  The event is scheduled to run from 10 am to noon. People often turn up early at these events. The incentive for the gun turn in is a...

A couple whose two dogs mauled a jogger on a rural Michigan road have been charged with murder, reports CBS Detroit....In addition to the murder charges, federal authorities said Quagliata and Lucaj are Albanians living in the U.S. illegally. A report in the Detroit Free Press stated they were facing imminent deportation at the time of the attack. It is unclear if their citizenship status will affect their trial.Authorities said it was the third attack by the dogs in the past two years. The couple was apparently breeding dogs at their property, officials said.