Free Republic

Since I now have a “right” to free contraceptives, where can I go to get my free guns since I have a “right” to bear arms? (Washington Times) A top official with the National Rifle Association said Friday that President Obama will move to “destroy” gun rights and “erase” the Second Amendment if he is re-elected in November. While delivering one of the liveliest and best-received speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said the president’s low-key approach to gun rights during his first term was “a “conspiracy to ensure re-election by...

Yesterday, Senate Bill 350 passed unanimously in the state Senate Judiciary Committee, along with an amendment submitted by bill sponsor and state Senator Don Balfour (R-9) that would require law enforcement agencies to begin the process of returning seized firearms within thirty days of a court’s final judgment. SB 350, along with the supported amendment, would mandate municipal, county and state police authorities return all seized firearms, not currently being held as evidence in a criminal investigation, to the lawful owner if able. If the lawful owner is not found or unable to take possession of the firearm, SB 350...

Joel is one of the most effective members of the NRA Board currently serving. He deserves votes from every NRA voting member participating in 2012...

Recently, a federal district court in Washington, D.C. issued a ruling upholding an Obama administration policy that requires federally licensed firearms retailers in states bordering Mexico to report multiple sales of semi-automatic rifles. The case was brought by two NRA-backed firearm retailers and by the National Shooting Sports Foundation acting on behalf of its affected members. Plaintiffs have already filed an appeal—but while we await the outcome, your help is urgently needed in seeking congressional action to end this illegal policy. Devised by Attorney General Eric Holder’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the plan requires all of the...

Knox Endorses Heil in NRA Elections As magazines containing ballots for the 2012 NRA Board of Directors Election have been arriving in people’s mail boxes over the past week (if you got a ballot, you’re eligible to vote – if you didn’t you aren’t) I have been receiving requests for guidance as to which candidates I feel are worth supporting. This year I am only endorsing one candidate, Maria Heil, and asking voting members of NRA to cast ballots with only Mrs. Heil’s name marked. While I do not know Mrs. Heil personally, she comes highly recommended by friends whose...

Manasquan, NJ --(Ammoland.com)- Freedom rest on our shoulders — let’s stand proud and defend it together”‘ says three term NRA Board member Scott Bach. “If all we have left to muster is sheer force of will and bold intention, we will always find a way to defend freedom – always.” These words embody the spirit of a tenacious Second Amendment activist, who has devoted more than a decade to defending gun rights both nationally and on the “front lines” of the Northwest – where politicians who control government are hostile to firearms freedoms. As president of the Association of New...

NRA-Backed Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax Passes Unanimously in U.S. Senate -- Bill Passed in U.S. House by 412-6 Vote in June By unanimous consent, the U.S. Senate on Thursday passed H.R. 5552 -- the Firearms Excise Tax Improvement Act -- sponsored by Congressmen Ron Kind (D-WI) and Paul Ryan (R-WI). S. 632, its Senate companion, was sponsored by Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID).“I would like to thank Senators Baucus and Crapo for their leadership in helping secure passage of this measure,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist. "Firearm and ammunition manufacturers were unfairly mandated to...

“Wayne LaPierre Falsely Claims ‘All’ The NRA's Money Comes From Small Donors,” Chris Brown of Media Matters sneers in triumph. He’s focusing on an interview with Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre by Glenn Beck, where the association head was asked about how NRA could hope to match union political contributions. LaPierre’s response: We raise it all through 5, 10, 15, 20 dollar contributions that Americans are willing to preserve freedom. And they're willing to support it. But, you know, that's what NRA is about. I mean, I always say we're about our membership and we're about giving voice to our...

“Romney secures front-runner status with New Hampshire win, looks to take momentum into South Carolina,” Fox News reports. This follows the former Massachusetts governor’s win in Iowa. Not escaping media notice is a new meme: “Conservatives squirm.” See? See again? The thing is, they’re right—and no one is squirming more than gun owners. That’s because, in spite of trying to clean up his image with the help of the NRA, they will never forget his words and deeds when he had the political power to make a difference: - “Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts,” Romney said, at...

The idea has been kicking around Washington State’s gun rights landscape for a few weeks, but now that a bill has been introduced to create an “NRA license plate” with funds going to hunter education, the battle lines are drawn and the gloves are definitely off. Sponsored by State Rep. Dean Takko, House Bill 2202 seems on the surface to be a good-intentioned idea. To read some of the comments left on the Seattle Times’ feedback pages, however, one might surmise that Takko’s bill is the Devil’s spawn. One guaranteed way to bring out the social bigots is to mention...

At a campaign stop this weekend, in-the-spotlight GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said he supports increased Internet regulation. According to Santorum, our rights aren’t “absolute� and stop at whatever point their exercise begins to infringe on the rights of others. Piracy represents an abuse of intellectual property rights — and that abuse should have consequences, Santorum says.So far, so good. Everybody agrees that piracy is a problem.But Santorum seems too ready to look to regulation for the solution to the piracy problem, suggesting that government interference might be an effective way to thwart piraters. That, to me, seems short-sighted, given...

Newt Gingrich has ramped up his attacks on Mitt Romney as a heartless leveraged buyout executive for his years at Bain Capital, asking reporters in Manchester on Monday, “Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that, somehow, a little bit of a flawed system?” But Mr. Gingrich was himself on an advisory board for a major investment firm that had a similar business model, Forstmann Little, a pioneering private equity firm co-founded in 1978 by Theodore J. Forstmann...

In a press release this afternoon, Club for Growth criticized Newt Gingrich for his attacks on Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital, calling them unbecoming a “Reagan Conservative.” Club for Growth’s statement: Yesterday, Gingrich said “Those of us who believe in free markets and those of us who believe that in fact the whole goal of investment is entrepreneurship and job creation…we find it pretty hard to justify rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company, leaving behind 1,700 families without a job.” Gingrich’s attack was echoed that same day that by the Democratic National Committee, which...

Fairfax, VA --(Ammoland.com)- NRA-News is a valued partner that continues to cover breaking gun rights news with a new and improved short video format in the “NRA News Minute” videos. To view the current firearms or gun rights news video, please click above: Cam Edwards talks to Dave Adams from the Virginia Shooting Sports Association on the positive pro gun make up of the coming Virginia legislature and the chances of killing Virginia’s One Gun a Month Law. Read More on these topics: * One-Gun-A-Month Bill Passed in NJ * New One Gun A Months Law Ends Handgun Sales *...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Three More Wins for Gun Owners   Thursday, December 22, 2011   H.R. 2055—the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012—has been passed by the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and has been sent to the President for his expected signature.  This bill contains three NRA-backed provisions that will strengthen our Second Amendment rights and prohibit your federal tax dollars from being used to advance an anti-gun agenda. Stopping Your Tax Dollars From Funding Anti-Gun Studies One of the protections expanded and strengthened can be found in Sec. 218 of the...

In all of my years fighting on behalf of the National Rifle Association to defend the Second Amendment, I never thought I would see a White House so vehemently opposed to gun ownership that it would be willing to arm violent criminals and endanger American lives in pursuit of a gun control agenda. Readers will recall that a little over two months ago, in this same space, I wrote: “I would like to believe that President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder – no matter how much they oppose our Second Amendment rights – would never break the law...

(editor's note: In the NRA-ILA Grassroots News Minute for December 16, the gun advocacy group asks why the "Fast and Furious" gun operation was even begun in the first place. It speculates that it was so the Obama administration could impose new gun control restrictions.) Video report at the link.

From the first moment that the American people became aware that senior BATFE officials ordered agents in the field to allow guns sold in the U.S. to be smuggled on an all-but-certain path to Mexico’s vicious drug cartels, many of us have wondered “why.” What possible legitimate purpose could be fulfilled by allowing a large number of guns—over 2,000, by some estimates—to disappear across our southwestern border without the Mexican government’s knowledge? There has been only one logical answer possible. Someone within the BATFE or higher in the Department of Justice wanted the smuggled guns to be recovered at crime...

Congressman attempts to transfer Fast and Furious blame onto NRA ‘radicals,’ the Senate — Holder obliges Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson accused the tea party movement and the National Rifle Association of creating an “manufactured” controversy over Operation Fast and Furious Thursday. Johnson’s comments came during an interview with The Daily Caller outside the House Judiciary Committee hearing room. Attorney General Eric Holder was testifying before the committee about Fast and Furious — a Justice Department program where Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents facilitated the sale of about 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels. “I think this...

This past summer, Missouri passed a law that, among marking a great many other advances in gun rights, made firearm sound suppressors (popularly, but inaccurately, referred to as "silencers") far easier to legally own. Previously, only those with a federal firearms license (FFL), as is required for gun dealers, could own suppressors in the state. Missourians are still, of course, unfortunately under the thumb of the onerous federal laws regulating suppressors ($200 tax stamp for each suppressor, detailed background check with fingerprints, the legal jeopardy one places oneself in by owning both suppressors and "Chore Boy" pot scrubbers, etc.). The...

Police officers in Los Angeles stormed Augusta Millender’s home early one morning in 2003. They were looking for Ms. Millender’s foster son, Jerry Bowen, and for a shotgun he had used in a domestic assault. They found neither. But they did seize a gun owned by Ms. Millender, who was 73. The gun was legal, and she said she kept it for self-defense. Scalia, “If he’s so stupid that he executes a warrant that no reasonable officer could think was correct,” the justice said of a hypothetical officer, “he’s in the pot, right?” Both the National Rifle Association and the...

Scarborough, Maine -- [...] In recent years, many top-selling brands - including the 195-year-old Remington Arms, as well as Bushmaster Firearms and DPMS, leading makers of military-style semiautomatics - have quietly passed into the hands of a single private company. It is called the Freedom Group - and it is the most powerful and mysterious force in the U.S. commercial gun industry today. Never heard of it? You're not alone. Even within gun circles, the Freedom Group is something of an enigma. Its rise has been so swift that it has become the subject of wild speculation and grassy-knoll conspiracy...

(editor's note: in the latest NRA Grassroots News Minute, Krista Cupp gives an update on Attorney General Eric Holder's latest denial about the Fast and Furious gun scandal): This is a video report. Krista Cupp is definetly not guilty.

Virginia's criminal background check system for firearm purchases, the first of its kind in the nation, is being targeted for elimination. Gun-rights advocates have lobbied Gov. Bob McDonnell to scrap the program, arguing that it is redundant because a federal background check system can replace it. Gun-control groups say doing so would take a valuable law enforcement tool away from Virginia State Police and undermine state gun laws. Efforts to cancel the state's 22-year-old background check system, known as the Virginia Firearms Transaction Program, could be debated in the upcoming General Assembly session. Republicans will control state government for the...

The endorsement of a powerful gun-rights group is up for grabs in a key Senate race. The National Rifle Association’s (NRA) decision on whether to endorse Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) or Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg (Mont.) could be the deciding factor in what is expected to be a close contest. Political analysts say that the winner of this election could determine which party will control the Senate in January of 2013. Tester and Rehberg have strong gun rights voting records. The NRA gives Tester an A grade and Rehberg an A+. A Montana State University-Billings poll released earlier...

The final conference report on the combined Fiscal Year 2012 Agriculture, Commerce/Justice/Science (CJS) and Transportation/Housing/Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations bills—also known as the “Mini-Bus,” was passed by both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, and has been signed into law. One of the most important ways that Congress has protected the Second Amendment is through a number of general provisions included in various appropriations bills. Many of these provisions have been included in the bills for many years—some of the provisions go back almost three decades. This conference report is no exception, as it contains 12 provisions that strengthen the...

The endorsement of a powerful gun-rights group is up for grabs in a key Senate race. The National Rifle Association’s (NRA) decision on whether to endorse Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) or Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg (Mont.) could be the deciding factor in what is expected to be a close contest. Political analysts say that the winner of this election could determine which party will control the Senate in January of 2013.

The National Rifle Association celebrates it 140th anniversary today: Today marks the 140th birthday of the National Rifle Association, and it’s hard not to take a look back at the history of how we got to the place we are today. What started as a marksmanship training effort following the Civil War has evolved into the leading defender in Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. Help celebrate the NRA’s birthday today by becoming more involved in one of our many programs. From attending a local Friends of NRA Banquet, to trying your hand at competitive shooting, introducing a young...

DAVID AXELROD'S PATTERN OF SEXUAL MISBEHAVIOR November 9, 2011Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country -- Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. -- but never in Chicago. So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod. Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O'Grady, who is close with David Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug...

Report: Bialek Fired from NRA for False Accustations of Sexual Assault November 8th, 2011 (3) Posted By Toro520. One might be asking themselves why Ms. Bialek was fired from the National Restaurant Association. After all, being fired, quite unlike simply being laid off, is a serious issue with serious ramifications; since leaving the Restuarant Association, Ms. Bialek has been unable to maintain regular employment. So why was this woman let go? Why has it seemingly affected her ability to remain employed for so long? Perhaps it might have something to do with the reason she was fired from the National...

When sexual harassment complaints against Herman Cain unfolded at the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s, the issue was all too familiarfor the trade association. In the wake of the televised 1991 Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings — and the widely publicized sexual harassment charges leveled against him by Anita Hill — American businesses had been hit by a wave of sexual harassment cases. And the restaurant industry, in particular, was hit especially hard. Industry officials saw it coming — none other than Cain himself warned as long ago as 1991 that changes in federal law resulting from...

LEBANON, TENNESSEE - The former treasurer of a political action committee operated by Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Incorporated has been arraigned on charges of stealing more than $70,000 from the organization...... "Forth was manager of political affairs for the National Restaurant Association in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 until April 1998."

A Herman Cain aide said Thursday that the Cain campaign is considering its legal options over the original Politico story, which revealed that the former head of the National Restaurant Association was accused of sexually harassing at least two women during his tenure in the 1990s. “This is likely not over with Politico from a legal perspective,” a campaign official told the Post, stopping short of explaining what exactly he meant by taking legal action against the publication. The Cain campaign has had an attorney advising it since Saturday on crisis management, which hasn’t gone particularly well for Cain since...

"WASHINGTON – Former Governor Mitt Romney resigned today from the board of directors of Marriott International, potentially another sign of his preparations for another presidential run. Romney, who served on Marriott’s board for 10 years before resigning to run for governor in 2002, rejoined the board in January 2009.

WASHINGTON — The National Restaurant Association gave $35,000 — a year’s salary — in severance pay to a female staff member in the late 1990s after an encounter with Herman Cain, its chief executive at the time, made her uncomfortable working there, three people with direct knowledge of the payment said on Tuesday. The woman was one of two whose accusations of sexual harassment by Mr. Cain, now a Republican candidate for president, led to paid severance agreements during his 1996-99 tenure at the association. Disclosure of the scale of the severance further challenged his initial description of the matter...

A deadly shooting rampage at a Carson City IHOP restaurant last month has prompted a call for a review of Nevada's gun laws. Assembly Judiciary Committee Chairman William Horne said it would be appropriate for lawmakers to consider changes to the state's gun regulations after a man with a history of mental illness shot 11 people with an assault weapon at the restaurant, killing three Nevada National Guard members and a civilian before killing himself. Horne, D-Las Vegas, told the Reno Gazette-Journal that while he's a gun owner who supports gun rights, he questions why citizens need to own an...

In an unprecedented assault on states’ rights and our ability to keep our communities safe, the gun lobby is pushing dangerous federal legislation to override Nevada’s gun laws. The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, more accurately called the Packing Heat on Your Street Act, would allow out-of-state visitors to carry loaded, concealed handguns even if these folks would be violating Nevada law. Nevada residents, on the other hand, would be subject to a different, tougher set of standards for carrying concealed weapons. Even the NRA has admitted that this is a full-on attack against the very notion that states may set...

The government-sanctioned gunrunning operation, Fast and Furious, was a plot to undermine Second Amendment rights in the United States, National Rifle Association president Wayne LaPierre charged on Friday in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense,” LaPierre said. “Over a period of two or three years they were running thousands and thousands of guns to the most evil people on earth. At the same time they were yelling ’90 per cent… of the guns the Mexican drug cartels are using come from the United States.’

Nestled in the Pacific Ocean approximately 30 miles from the mainland of Santa Barbara sits a beautiful island where majestic Roosevelt elk and Kaibab mule deer roam free. Ferried across a treacherous channel, these grand species were brought to Santa Rosa Island some 80 years ago, but their days are officially numbered. A complete slaughter of these magnificent animals is scheduled to occur before the midnight tide rises on Dec. 31, 2011. Sharpshooters will be en route to the island soon to comply with a 1996 court settlement and 2007 legislation that reinstated the extermination order.

Here we see again! The nature of an Obama supporter. DISSENT IS PATRIOTIC!Unless your a gun owner or patriot.

One of two court cases that could have expanded gun rights if successful and had drawn national attention in the debate over the constitutional right to bear arms was dismissed today by a federal judge in Lubbock. In a 17-page order, U.S. District Judge Samuel Cummings dismissed a challenge to a 32-year-old federal law barring handgun sales by licensed gun dealers to people under the age of 21. “The Court is of the opinion that the ban does not run afoul of the Second Amendment to the Constitution,” the ruling states. “The right to bear arms is enjoyed only by...

As we reported last week, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security recently held a hearing on H.R. 822, the "National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011." This critically important bill, introduced earlier this year by Congressmen Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) and cosponsored by more than 240 of their colleagues, would enable millions of permit holders to exercise their right to self-defense while traveling outside their home states. There is currently only one remaining state (Illinois) that has no clear legal way for individuals to carry concealed firearms for self-defense. Forty states have...

The NRA has only once previously endorsed a presidential candidate before completion of the primaries. The lone example is Bill Richardson, who received the group's endorsement in 2008, in the Democrat primary (against uniformly rabidly anti-gun competition). Now, according to the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News, there is talk of the possibility of such an endorsement in the Republican primary, for Texas Governor Rick Perry: Perry could be a contender for an NRA endorsement during the presidential primary season, a step that the gun group took only once before. In 2008, the NRA backed Bill Richardson in the Democratic...

Scandal: Weapons linked to ATF's "Fast and Furious" operation have been tied to at least eight violent crimes in Mexico, including three murders and four kidnappings. At least Solyndra doesn't have a body count. Administration scandals are piling up fast and furious, no pun intended, but none is worse than the gun-running operation that operated under the umbrella title of Project Gunrunner. Fast and Furious, a deadly subset, gets deadlier by the day. A letter dated Sept. 9 from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Welch sent to Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and...

Thinking of upgrading NRA Life to Endowment membership.. Know there's much of an extra benefit but wondering if anyone else upgraded from life...

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre has joined a growing chorus of gun rights activists to demand that a special prosecutor be named in the on-going investigation of Operation Fast and Furious, the botched gun trafficking sting mounted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "Common sense tells me there had to be some authority on this coming from the White House, yet who knows how deep it goes, how high it goes?"—Wayne LaPierre LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, echoed many of the same sentiments expressed in June by Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee...

Augusta, Kan. — Readers may remember I recently wrote a column defending the image of the National Rifle Association of America in which I reviewed the origin, purpose, and contributions to the country by that organization. I am extremely concerned by the concerted effort of the past 30 years or so to denigrate, marginalize, and even criminalize many of the traditions, organizations, and activities that make us uniquely American. While researching a different subject in the Kansas State Adjutant General’s archives, I was impressed by what an integral part the National Rifle Association plays in the national defense, though it...

When Robert Baillio was pulled over by a member of the Shreveport police department, he learned that Shreveport Mayor and “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” member Cedric Glover believes firearms belong only in the hands of the police. In fact Glover is such a believer that his officers are trained to identify likely gun owners for the purpose of harassing them into giving up the practice of driving while armed! The officer who detained Baillio–ostensibly for the improper use of a turn signal–later admitted it was actually the display of bumper stickers on the young man’s truck which prompted the stop....

I recently made my final installment on my NRA Life Membership. Yeah, I made a big payment, mostly because I could, and they sent me the mantelpiece statue they offered. And its not a bad one- nice American Eagle on it, nice bright US flag, etc. And then I turn in over and find a big sticker saying "MADE IN CHINA".....Sheesh, can't they at least find something made in America?

  NRA Delivers Remarks at United Nations Concerning Proposed Arms Trade Treaty   Thursday, July 14, 2011   National Rifle Association's Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre addressed the United Nations this afternoon. He told the U.N. to not interfere with the Second Amendment freedoms of Americans and pledged to continue the fight to preserve civilian ownership of firearms in the U.S. He said the NRA will oppose any U.N. provision that seeks to prohibit or regulate U.S. civilian firearm ownership.  LaPierre said in his remarks, "The cornerstone of our freedom is the Second Amendment. Neither the United Nations, nor...