Free Republic

George Zimmerman should be disarmed. If ever a man deserved to be shunned by society, it is pudgy Georgie Zimmerman. And in some quarters, he is. Unfortunately, there are enough of his ilk around – the big guns who run the National Rifle Association, conservative talk radio Obama haters and others – who quickly and emphatically drew the besieged Floridian into their warm and fuzzy protective cocoon of right-wing fanaticism. The ink was not even dry on the long-delayed Zimmerman arrest warrant when the NRA brass leaped to his defense because he fulfilled their classic gunfighter role model — a...

Following in the well-worn footsteps of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Blueprint for Federal Action on Illegal Guns, this week the Council on Foreign Relations released a memo urging the Obama administration to disregard the will of the American people and Congress and unilaterally enact a series of gun controls. Entitled, A Strategy to Reduce Gun Trafficking and Violence in the Americas, and written by CFR Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies, Julia F. Sweig, the memo pins the ills of Central and South America on U.S. gun owners and urges the president to curb our rights to...

Just revealed Democratic anti-NRA talking points urge anti-gun advocates and politicians to hype high-profile gun incidents like the Florida slaying of Trayvon Martin to win support for new gun control laws. In talking points likely followed by top Democratic leaders including President Obama after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in December, the anti-gun "guide" urged gun foes to speak out when a shooting "creates a unique climate" to shout down the National Rifle Association."The most powerful time to communicate is when concern and emotions are running at their peak," said the 80-page document titled "Preventing Gun Violence Through Effective...

During a May appearance on Rachel Maddow Lean Forward Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said gun rights are not "God-given" and any claim that the Founding Fathers wanted U.S. citizens armed so they could repel a tyranny "is insane." Murphy said, "The Second Amendment is not an absolute right, not a God-given right. It has always had conditions upon it like the First Amendment has." This is disturbing language from a sitting Senator, especially when you consider that the First Amendment opens with the phrase "Congress shall make no law" and the Second Amendment states that the right to keep and...

During an August 4 appearance on C-SPAN's Newsmakers, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said gun control failed in April and "has no chance of passage now" because of "some on the left like the mayor of New York City." As reported by Andrew Johnson at National Review, Leahy said, "[NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg] actually turned some people off that we actually might have gotten for supporters." He said that Bloomberg's ads were especially detrimental to the gun control push and he took issue with the rabid nature in which Bloomberg approached the issue. Earlier in the summer, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)...

Your guns are in danger. Obama has stopped defending the Second Amendment. He did not get his gun control agenda passed in the Senate. So, he’s unconstitutionally trying to use the United Nations to control your guns. Don’t let him. Obama is getting dangerously close to signing the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. If he signs this treaty and the Senate ratifies it, the Second Amendment is toast. And your guns will be in the control of dictators around the world. This sounds like a bad movie or a conspiracy theory, and I wish it were. But it’s real. 130...

“Ideally, handguns, which account for more than half of all homicides in the United States, should be banned completely, but we recognize that this is not currently politically feasible,” wrote Dr. Karl P. Adler in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). For years, the confiscationist left have fought a losing battle in their attempt to repeal the rights of 100 million American gun owners. Even with the benefit of what dedicated gun grabbers undoubtedly considered a God-send–the brutal murder of 20 children in Newtown, Conn.–the right to keep and bear arms has been so jealously guarded, and the...

The anti-gun crowd doesn't want "compromise." They want confiscation and control.In April, the Senate rejected the Toomey-Manchin gun control proposal. In the wake of its defeat many asked why gun owners and their organizations resisted so limited a measure. Granted, it would have had little but symbolic benefit. Its core was to require background checks at gun shows (which Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded involved a whole 0.8 percent of crime guns) and on Internet gun sales (a miniscule proportion, most of which probably go through licensed dealers anyway). But why not accept something so modest, in light of the...

In 1994, the United States was home to about 200 million privately owned guns. Today, that number has ballooned to between 270 million and 300 million. That's almost half of all privately owned guns worldwide, according to a new essay from the Brookings Institution.The essay, titled The Promise by Matt Bennett, looks back at the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings and the way ahead for gun control. The piece breaks down some other big numbers surrounding the battle for more gun regulation: More than 10 firearm deaths per 100,000 Americans every year; 600 annual accidental shootings; 11,400 murders; about 31,000 total...

A lawyer friend of mine suspects that the Zimmerman trial is a clever trick that has been designed by cunning liberals to strip Americans of their second amendment rights. You all remember Clinton's legalisms in 1998, saying that what happened between him and Monica Lewinsky did not meet the strict legal definition of sex. According to my lawyer friend, it is easy for sneaky liberals to interpret the second amendment as giving Americans the right to own arms, but not the right to use them. Liberals may have figured out that going door-to-door to confiscate guns is too much trouble....

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Connor in Norwood, Massachusetts. Connor, I'm glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi. CALLER: Thanks, Rush. You're nice to have me on. RUSH: You bet, sir. CALLER: Excellent. So there's press release yesterday. La Raza is joining up with the NAALCP saying they want the DOJ to take action on this case, which I presume is probably civil rights charges, though, they don't say it. I was wondering what you think of La Raza and why they're not standing up for Zimmerman. RUSH: Well, that's not all that hard to understand. La Raza is a...

ORLANDO — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. strongly condemned so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws here Tuesday in a speech to the NAACP that addressed the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin. The laws “sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods,” Holder said, by “allowing – and perhaps encouraging – violent situations to escalate in public.”

A growing number of Americans are getting permission to carry firearms in public—and under their clothes—a development that has sparked concern among some law-enforcement authorities. Applications for "concealed-carry" permits are soaring in many states, some of which recently eased permit requirements. [snip] Research is split on whether more armed citizens deter or exacerbate gun violence. Economist John Lott, a conservative commentator and author of "More Guns, Less Crime," said data show concealed-carry laws reduce violent crime. [snip] n 2008 and 2010 rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Second Amendment to the Constitution grants broad license to keep and...

In the near future, Americans who own or want guns likely will be subject to rafts of new questions from social scientists, medical researchers and law enforcement officials intent to discover just what guns they own, why they own them and what they intend to use them for — not to mention where and how they keep them. They will also likely have more researchers poring over such issues as whether childhood education programs against gun violence actually work; whether there actually is any relationship between violence in the media and in real life; and whether the safety plans that...

Vice President Joseph R. Biden said Tuesday the fight for Congressional action on gun legislation is far from over as he outlined a subset of executive actions the Obama administration has taken to reduce gun violence in the wake of the Connecticut school shootings in December. The address was simultaneously a summary of what President Obama has been able to do since the shootings in Newtown, Conn., and a rallying cry to remind voters and lawmakers that neither he nor Mr. Obama will let the issue fade from public memory. “We got a majority, but not the supermajority needed,” he...

Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, billionaire, desiring to rewrite the constitution, and countrywide buttinski suffered a major "gun control" loss on Thursday in Nevada. He and his pet group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), "spent hundreds of thousands of dollars" to buy passage of the Nevada state legislature's bill SB 221, another dangerous piece of gun control legislation dressed up to look palatable by applying the innocuous-sounding "background check" label to it. Bloomberg lost, and lost big-time, not because of a paid opposition wading in money, but because of a viral grass-roots effort organized by average Americans provided...

According to Chris Matthews, pro-Second Amendment Americans are weird, not "normal," "obsessed" and probably racist. In a segment on Thursday's Hardball, the cable host played a new National Rifle Association ad attacking Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. Matthews lectured, "The gun people, they think about nothing else. And they never change their minds, never change their attitudes and never change the frickin' subject."

My name -- No More Names: The Drive to Reduce Gun Violence Friday marks six months since the mass shooting in Newtown, CT. It also marks six months of inaction from Congress. That's why we're launching an ambitious, nationwide bus tour that will bring survivors and supporters directly to members of Congress across the country. No More Names: The Drive to Reduce Gun Violence will visit 25 states in 100 days. We will stand in front of the local offices of members of Congress and read the names of Americans murdered with guns since Newtown, who number more than 5,000...

. . . In the meantime, there are a number of actions President Barack Obama can take that do not require approval by Congress. We urge the administration to take additional actions using its existing authority both to improve the federal government’s ability to prevent dangerous individuals from acquiring or possessing guns and to enhance law-enforcement investigations of gun-related crime. . . . .

In a letter to supporters Friday, Vice President Joe Biden asked supporters to help bring back support for gun control.

Oxfam America has long served as a reliable cheerleader for nearly all misguided United Nations policy. However, Oxfam America President Raymond Offenheiser’s Friday op-ed (“President should ignore fear mongering and sign arms treaty”) is an exceptional illustration of this blind allegiance. Offenheiser wants us to simultaneously believe the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty is both the single most important tool to cracking down on war crimes and that the treaty has absolutely no teeth whatsoever. That’s twisted logic for sure. Here’s the truth. The Arms Trade Treaty directly threatens the Second Amendment rights and privacy of American gun owners. Article 12...

There have been 73,441,399 background checks for gun purchases since President Obama took office, according to data released by the FBI. In 2009, the FBI conducted 14,033,824 background checks. If we subtract the month of January (Obama did not assume office until the end of the month) we get 12,819,939. The FBI conducted 14,409,616 background checks in 2010, 16,454,951 in 2011, and 19,592,303 in 2012. Add to that the first five months of 2013 (2,495,440, 2,309,393, 2,209,407, 1,714,433 and 1,435,917 respectively) and the total number of background checks under President Obama comes to 73,441,399. Since December 2012, when the gun...

The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is scheduled to be signed by Barack Obama on June 4, this Monday. He has already said he will sign it. However, the United States Senate passed a resolution that they will not ratify the document. Now a letter has been sent to Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry by 130 members of the House of Representatives opposing the ATT. On May 30 the 130 congressmen wrote to remind both Obama and Kerry that they are supposed to be “defenders of the sovereignty of the United States and as such the...

Obama punts on signing UN arms trade pact opposed by NRA By Julian Pecquet - 06/03/13 12:00 PM ET President Obama will not immediately sign a United Nations arms trade treaty opposed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) but is committed to doing so shortly, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday. Advocates for the pact had hoped the president would sign the treaty as soon as it became open for signatures on Monday, arguing that such a public display of support would create pressure on major arms dealers, such as Russia and China, to get on board. Kerry, however,...

Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed the opening of Arms Trade Treaty for signature today. The Obama administration plans on signing the treaty “as soon as the process of conforming the official translations is completed satisfactorily.” The United Nations passed sweeping legislation in April that will regulate the international arms trade and could lead to a national gun registry in the United States. No wonder Democrats love it! There’s more… In March the pro-Second Amendment Senate Bill 139 passed 53-46. 46 Democratic Senators voted against the bill which would: “Uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering...

Watching the celebration at the NRA convention over the defeat of background checks was the most nauseating experience of the day. I am not a New York gun control liberal, either. I support a shotgun for home defense, a handgun for limited conceal/carry, and an assortment of hunting rifles to balance West Virginia's exploding deer population (as evidenced by hourly collisions with cars). So, I am hardly out of the mainstream. But, the gun safety debate is B.S. This foaming at the mouth, Obamar is coming for the guns, Nanny Bloomberg is a bad billionaire, and most despicable of all,...

Shares have increased by 95% in the last year and are up more than 70% already in 2013. That makes Cabela’s stock the best-performing in the firearms industry and one of the top-performing stocks in the U.S. in the last year. The company’s two biggest shareholders, founders Richard and James Cabela, have seen the value of their combined 25% stake jump to $1.2 billion from $750 million at the start of 2013. About one-third of Cabela’s $3.1 billion in sales last year came from firearms, ammunition and accessories, and a substantial amount of its all-important sales growth came from its...

Vice President Joseph R. Biden said in a wide-ranging magazine interview that gun-control legislation will pass eventually because several senators who voted against it are experiencing a public backlash. “To use the vernacular, there’s suddenly a lot of senators out there who have seen the Lord,” Mr. Biden told Rolling Stone magazine. “You find out that the senator from New Hampshire [Republican Kelly Ayotte] is in trouble; she voted no. I can name you four senators who called me and said, “Jesus, I guess you were right — maybe we can find some other way of doing this. Can we...

Making the rounds on Youtube. The new NRA president Jim Porter makes some off the cuff comments a 2012 speech to the New York Rifle & Pistol Association. He is outspoken about overturning recent gun laws adopted by states after the Newtown massacre, according to the NY Daily News.. He also supports firearms training for all U.S. citizens -- including civilians -- so they're "ready to fight tyranny."

The Austin American-Statesman reports: “On a day when the nation’s strongest Second Amendment lobby group was gathered in Houston, the Texas House on Saturday tentatively approved a dozen pro-gun bills — including a highly controversial measure that would legalize concealed weapons in buildings on college campuses. Another bill would thwart enforcement of new federal gun restrictions in Texas, a move intended to target firearms laws proposed by the Obama administration. Saturday’s votes were on a wide array of legislation that would provide state training for new school marshals to protect students from shooting attacks, exempt concealed weapons licensees living in...

The Obama administration is on a collision course with the state of Kansas over a new law that claims to nullify federal gun controls. Attorney General Eric Holder has threatened litigation against Kansas over the law in what could the opening salvo of a blockbuster legal battle with national ramifications. “This is definitely a case that could make it to the Supreme Court,” Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Friday afternoon. “There is nothing symbolic about this law.” Kobach, a former constitutional law professor, helped craft the statute, which bars the federal government from regulating guns and ammunition manufactured...

Gun control advocates are in hysterics, using frenzied, emotional attacks against Senators who opposed gun control last month in hopes of changing the momentum. This explains why Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) has been targeted in New Hampshire, and it's why Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly have been targeting Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in Kentucky. Staunch gun control supporters saw Sandy Hook Elementary as their opportunity to secure more gun laws, but now they see that opportunity fading away....

The Hill reports that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback just signed into law a statute that "bars the federal government from regulating guns and ammunition manufactured and stored within Kansas state lines." Moreover, the new law makes it a felony for federal authorities to attempt to enforce federal gun control laws, treaties, or rules related to firearms within Kansas state lines. Federal agents would not be arrested but will be prosecuted on "a complaint-and-summons basis." Naturally, U.S. Attorney general Eric Holder is furious. Already he has sent a letter to Brownback promising, “The United States will take all appropriate action, including...

The public face of the National Rifle Association is imploring members to never surrender their weapons in the wake of recent gun control efforts in Congress that he said will "destroy us and every ounce of our freedom." Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre spoke in Houston during the organization's annual member meeting, which is part of the yearly convention. LaPierre told several thousand people that the "political and media elites" have tried to use December's shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school and other recent mass shootings "to blame us, to shame us, to compromise our freedom for their agenda."...

“I now agree that it’s fruitless to give the benefit of the doubt to people who are so obviously corrupt, so clearly malevolent, so bent on hurting innocent people for their own sick gain,” Aurora Sentinel editor Dave Perry wrote in an April 25 editorial. “No more due process in the clear-cut case of insidious terrorism. “When the facts are so clearly before all Americans, for the whole world to see, why bother with this country’s odious and cumbersome system of justice?” he asked. “Send the guilty monsters directly to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity and let them rot in...

Signs at a gun-control rally in Washington, D.C., January 26, 2013.The gun-control debate is one of the most dishonest arguments we have in American politics. It is dishonest in its particulars, of course, but it is in an important sense dishonest in general: The United States does not suffer from an inflated rate of homicides perpetrated with guns; it suffers from an inflated rate of homicides. The argument about gun control is at its root a way to put conservatives on the defensive about liberal failures, from schools that do not teach to police departments that do not police and...

On Monday, May 6, the current National Rifle Association president, David Keene, will step down after completing his two-year term, and the new president, Jim Porter, will step up to the role. The new president is certainly not new to the NRA. James W. Porter II, known to friends and family as “Jim,” has been a long-time board member of the NRA, recently serving two years as second vice president and two years as first vice president before becoming eligible for the position as president, which is a voluntary and unpaid position. Porter will be the first ever second generation...

After the defeat of the Manchin-Toomey background-check bill, and the subsequent demonization of the Senate, Senators Manchin and Toomey are reportedly back at work on bipartisan legislation addressing gun control. John R. Lott, author of the new book At the Brink, who has been researching gun policy for decades, talks about the state of the debate with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez. Kathryn Jean Lopez: Gabby Giffords has accused the Senate of being in the grips of the gun lobby. Is there another explanation for the defeat of the Manchin-Toomey bill? JOHN R. LOTT: Yes, there is. The politicians...

"Most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States," President Obama said during a speech at Mexico's Anthropology Museum. "I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms. And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right, and I always will.""But at the same time, as I’ve said in the United States, I will continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. That can save lives here...

A new law in Kansas that criminalizes the enforcement of federal gun controls in the state is unconstitutional, Attorney General Eric H. Holder said. “In purporting to override federal law and to criminalize the official acts of federal officers, [the law] directly conflicts with federal law and is therefore unconstitutional,” Mr. Holder wrote to Gov. Sam Brownback in a letter dated April 26. “Federal officers who are responsible for enforcing federal laws and regulations in order to maintain public safety cannot be forced to choose between the risk of a criminal prosecution by a state and the continued performance of...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Alabama Legislature is telling the federal government and others to back off on gun control. The Senate passed legislation Tuesday declaring that “All federal acts, laws, orders, rules or regulations regarding firearms are a violation of the Second Amendment.” It also says federal laws in violation of the Second Amendment shall be considered null and void in Alabama. The vote was 24-6. The sponsor, Republican Sen. Paul Sanford of Huntsville, said the bill resulted from hundreds of emails and calls he received from his north Alabama constituents concerned that Congress might enact new gun regulations or...

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics. The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising...

While the left is frequently up in arms about the about the Koch brother’s money funding political and campaign projects, there is no shortage of big leftist corporate and foundation money floating around hot political issues. Both the Joyce Foundation and Google are established players in the anti-second amendment movement as well as other progressive political causes. The Joyce Foundation has injected large chucks of money into the anti-gun movement, including Mayor’s Against Gun Control and the Violence Prevention Center. (Aside: Who was on the Board of the Joyce Foundation? None other than President Barack Obama who keeps assuring us...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was glum after background checks went down April 17. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) A week after gun legislation suffered a stinging defeat in the Senate, an uncomfortable realization has settled over the Capitol that it will likely take another mass shooting or similar tragedy to reignite momentum for gun control. President Obama called last week’s vote “round one.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pledged that it was “just the beginning.” But gun-control advocates, both inside and outside of Congress, have identified no immediate path forward to alter a political landscape that left them five...

In comments made on April 25, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) both said they were saddened gun control didn't pass on April 17 but assured reporters the measures would be brought up for another vote some time this year. "I think we will bring the bill back before the end of the year... lots of Senators who thought it was safe to vote against it [on April 17] because of the intensity [pro-gun groups] are not so sure anymore," Schumer said. Schumer said the intensity for gun control has increased since the failed vote for gun control...

Vice President Joe Biden reassured leading gun control groups Thursday that the administration remains committed to pushing an expansion of background checks for gun purchases through Congress, according to one of the event's attendees. Biden, who has led the administration's efforts on gun control in the wake of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, told the meeting of about 15 participants that despite last week's defeat of a bi-partisan measure in the Senate to expand checks at gun shows and online sales, that this was just the beginning. "He was delivering a charge to us" to stay engaged Pia Carusone, executive...

To The Left On The 2nd Amendment: Give UpMarket Ticker Karl DenningerApril 25, 2013 It's over folks. Look, I know that "95% of America wants reasonable gun restrictions", or so the media says. So Obama says. So lots of people say. So after The Senate said "NO" to more Gun Control, after 80 years of so-called "gun control" that has not done one damn thing to actually reduce gun violence (and in the most-jackbooted areas it can be argued it has doubled homicides or more!) there should be thousands of people willing to march from McPherson Square in Washington DC...

I have to wonder sometimes how some people reach the conclusions that they do. To be specific, let’s look at those who would say that we’d all have a safer society if only the government had guns. Right now it seems farfetched that anyone would agree to that. But the issue today is comprehensive gun owner registration and smaller clips. That nose under the tent now will easily lead to stricter rules when it is discovered, after another mass murder using legal arms, more restrictions will be necessary. Eventually only the government will have guns – much to the joy...

The Newtown killings had anti-gunners licking their chops from CNN to Capitol Hill. Years of working to undermine the right to keep and bear arms had come virtually to naught for gun confiscationists, but they knew the deaths of 20 children could be manipulated any way they liked, allowing them to make the most asinine and unsupportable claims imaginable about the evils of gun ownership. Call it a benefit of owning the national media. So Barack and friends spent months dancing on the graves of 20 sons and daughters while cooking up senate bills and executive “actions” advocating every conceivable...

Gun shows across the nation have experienced record turnout, even as the federal gun control push has hit a major roadblock. April gun shows—both before and after the Senate killed the Toomey-Manchin bill—have seen record crowds, as many fear the debate over the Second Amendment is not yet over. …