Free Republic

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court says a Maryland veteran can’t own a gun because of a misdemeanor assault conviction more than four decades ago.</p> <p>The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Friday turned away an appeal from 68-year-old Navy veteran Jefferson Wayne Schrader, who sued after failing a 2008 background check.</p>

(1918 Bolshevik Poster by Alexander Apsit reads "Citizens, hand over your weapons!") Why I gave up my guns • A former firearm enthusiast explains his personal epiphany Late one night in the spring of 2008, I was jolted awake by the sound of yet another a burglar trying to break into my Atlanta home. We’d already had a series of scary close calls, but this time I was ready: I had staged my shotgun and a box of shells in a broom closet right by the back door, next to the umbrellas. While my girlfriend called the police, I...

<p>BURLINGTON, N.C. (AP) — Police in Burlington say a deaf man was stabbed several times after his sign language was mistaken for gang signs by another man.</p> <p>Sgt. Mark Yancey said 45-year-old Terrance Ervin Daniels was using sign language with another deaf man. A third person saw them, thought they were flashing gang signs and stabbed Daniels several times with a kitchen knife. A neighbor saw the victim and called emergency personnel.</p>

The gun control hysteria and propaganda emanating from President Barak Obama, members of Congress, state legislators, mayors of major cities and assorted interest groups finds them in a considerable dither. With some wanting no less that the eventual confiscation of any weapon that can shoot more than one round of ammunition upon reloading, a rancorous debate and considerable push-back from the grass roots of the nation is inevitable. The very use of the term "assault weapon" — a propaganda term for any semi-automatic firearm — has been repeated so many times by media pundits that the very term has lost...

'If Teddy Roosevelt is the measure, I think it strengthens the case for President Obama' Al Sharpton aired a segment concerning a recent National Journal article which analyzed President Obama’s chances of attaining a coveted spot on Mt. Rushmore Friday evening on MSNBC. Teddy Roosevelt’s presence on the landmark garnered particular attention from Sharpton, who expressed his opinion that Roosevelt’s thin resume as a “transformative president” strengthens the case for Obama to be included: ABBY HUNTSMAN: You look at Reagan, he ended the Cold War. I think they have to have a legacy that changed America. Obama was the first...

More than a thousand Catholic priests have signed the letter to The Daily Telegraph arguing that the Government's gay marriage plans will "severely restrict the ability of Catholics to teach the truth about marriage in their schools" and rejecting promised safeguards as "meaningless". I'll be honest: when I read the news story about the letter, I thought: gosh, a thousand conservative/traditionalist priests are standing up to be counted. But that just goes to show the folly of assuming that the Catholic Church is as factional as the Church of England. Because when I worked my way down the names, I...

Computer users told to disable Java Press Association – 16 hours ago Press Association - Computer owners in the US have been advised to temporarily disable Java software (AP) The US Department of Homeland Security has advised people to temporarily disable the Java software on their computers to avoid potential hacking attacks. The recommendation came in an advisory which was issued following concerns raised by computer security experts. Experts believe hackers have found a flaw in Java's coding that creates an opening for criminal activity and other hi-tech mischief. Java is a widely used technical language that allows computer programmers...

Perhaps the Christmas 2012 season was bloodier than normal — or perhaps December 14th’s particularly heinous Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in suburban Newtown, Connecticut only makes it seem so. In any case, lots of people died violently over several pre-holiday weeks. And, adding to the awfulness, the widespread reaction has been an exasperatingly predictable exercise in distraction and misdirection. Actually, to clarify: it’s the reaction to the Connecticut atrocity that’s been vocally wrongheaded. December’s other outbreaks of firearms carnage have, by comparison, been forgotten pretty quickly by the national press and commentariat. In case you don’t know, three days...

Another bright, young male with time on his hands, another violent fantasy. This time, however, the young man who was "threatning [sic] my father and mother Smith to burne [sic] them and the house over them" was stopped in time. An owner of a crossbow, the teen was a resident of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth in Lincolnshire, England. Removed from King's School, Grantham, two years prior to the incident, the suspect is son of Hannah Ayscough and stepfather Rev. Barnabus Smith. The incident was recorded in the teen's diary which listed several violent episodes -- including an assault on another student with a...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered security forces to immediately evacuate the Arabs who have gathered in the area between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem, known as E1. To this end, the State said it would, on Saturday evening, request that the High Court of Justice rescind the injunction that it had issued, which is delaying the evacuation. Until the High Court responds to the State's motion, the Prime Minister has ordered the closure of access roads to the area in order to prevent gatherings. At this stage, the area has been declared a closed military zone and IDF forces have...

TAYLOR, Mich. (WXYZ) - A chaotic scene erupted at the Taylor Human Services Center when the crowd waiting for a Section 8 housing voucher distribution got out of control. The center is located at Eureka and Lange Roads. That's on Eureka, between Beech Daly and Inkster. Police say thousands of people from all over the area were at the center. Many were homeless, single moms, or disabled. They were hoping to get help paying for their housing from the government. "There was elderly, disabled people, pregnant single women. They were here for help, to get their Section 8 vouchers. It...

A judge has denied two Fullerton police officers' request to drop charges against them in the fatal beating of Kelly Thomas, a mentally ill homeless man, according to court documents obtained by NBC4 on Friday. In a Jan. 4 decision (PDF), Orange County Superior Court Judge William R. Froeberg ruled there was enough "competent evidence to show the commission of a crime or the defendant's connection with it." According to the ruling, the judge didn't want to rule on whether or not reasonable force was used. Instead, that matter should be left to a jury, he wrote.

Listen closely. That sound you hear is the sound of a cultural paranoia by people who have lost their grip on the reins of power, and on reality, and who fear the worst is coming. And they are preparing for it, whatever it may be — a war, a revolution, an apocalypse. These extremists make sensible, reasonable gun control hard to discuss, let alone achieve in this country, because they skew the conversations away from common-sense solutions on which both rational gun owners and non-gun owners can agree. These people, a vocal minority, have extreme fears — gun confiscation, widespread...

“Among the most difficult challenges facing the Air Force is the need to modernize,” writes Michael Donley, the Secretary of the Air Force. Despite major engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and Libya since the end of the Cold War, the Air Force currently operates the oldest fleet it has ever had. Sadly, sequestration threatens the future of modernization plans, drives up operations and maintenance costs, and prevents the United States from building the Air Force that the country needs in the future. The Air Force fleet is often described as “geriatric” or “decrepit.” It is becoming inadequate to support U.S....

Conservatives are taking aim at the pork-laden $50.7 billion Superstorm Sandy aid package that Northeastern governors and lawmakers hope to push through the House this coming week. Too much of the aid will go to recovery efforts for past disasters and other projects unrelated to the late-October storm, they say. The bill includes $150 million for what the Commerce Department described as fisheries disasters in places as far afield as Alaska and Mississippi, and $50 million in subsidies for replanting trees on private land damaged by wildfires. … The objections have led senior House Republicans to assemble a $17 billion...

President Barack Obama’s decision on Friday to speed up the drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan “reopens the possibility of the Taliban to emerge as a major player,” former Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra tells Newsmax. “It is a signal to the Afghan people—he signaled to the Taliban, and he signaled to the American people—that the U.S. role, the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, is done,” Hoekstra, the former GOP chairman of the powerful House Intelligence Committee, tells Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview. “It may not be completed, but it is finished. The US will no longer be there primarily to...

New questions are being asked about the ethics of Sen. Harry Reid; a Utah businessman is alleging that his state's attorney general demanded $600,000 as a bribe to Reid in exchange for dismissal of a federal investigation. Certainly the allegations could be false, but it's worth noting this isn't the first time Reid's name has come up in connection with some pretty shady propositions.  Remember the shady, underpriced land deal?  Or the green energy conflict? There's so much there, pithily summed up by Investors Business Daily as follows: . . .shadowy years he ran the Nevada Gaming Commission, through his...

A U.S. Army brigade will begin sending small teams into as many as 35 African nations early next year, part of an intensifying Pentagon effort to train countries to battle extremists. The teams will be limited to training and equipping efforts, and won't be permitted to conduct military operations without specific, additional approval from the secretary of defense. The sharper focus on Africa by the U.S. comes against a backdrop of widespread insurgent violence across North Africa, and as the African Union and other nations discuss military intervention in northern Mali.

As Washington focuses on what Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will propose next week to curb gun violence, gun and ammunition sales are spiking in the rest of the country as people rush to expand their arsenals in advance of any restrictions that might be imposed. People were crowded five deep at the tiny counter of a gun shop near Atlanta, where a pastor from Knoxville, Tenn., was among the customers who showed up in person after the store’s Web site halted sales because of low inventory. Emptying gun cases and bare shelves gave a picked-over feel to gun...

The hot new video at MRCTV.org is 1995 footage of Attorney General Eric Holder, when he was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. In his remarks before the Woman’s National Democratic Club, broadcast by CSPAN 2, Holder said people should be ashamed to own guns, just the way that cigarette smokes now “cower outside of buildings” to smoke. “What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way...