Free Republic

Clergy members oppose legislation; gun rights groups endorse it HARRISBURG - Some of Pennsylvania's clergy say a state house bill being considered will increase gun violence and deaths, while supporters contend the bill simply expands your right to self-defense.Dozens of clergy members crowded the steps in the Capitol rotunda Thursday morning to rally against House Bill 40. The group had gathered at the Capitol to watch a House Judicial Committee Public Hearing on the bill.The piece of legislation eliminates the "duty to retreat" if you are confronted by an attacker. It also expands the so-called "castle doctrine." That's a piece...

The lesson from an unsuccessful pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden this week was simple: Guns talk. The Maersk Alabama, the American-flagged ship infamously attacked by pirates in April, was attacked again Monday when Somali pirates opened fire on the ship in an attempt to board it. But the pirates didn't get far this time, after a four-man security team aboard the ship fired back, thwarting the attack. It's the first time a large cargo ship with an armed security team aboard is known to have repelled an attack, says Vice Adm. William Gortney, who commands the Pacific region...

Patriots or extremists? That was the title of a CNN story that aired this morning, looking at how some 100 new volunteer militia groups have sprung up since President Obama was elected. The story focused on the Michigan Militia, filming them while they trained at Camp Stasa in Bancroft, a city halfway between Lansing and Flint. According to a show of hands at the training session, about half the members there were new. "Any time we get a democratic president in office people become concerned, including myself, and we get a resurgence out here," said a militia member identified only...

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which considers opposition to draconian gun control laws to be "crackpot," has sent one of their "experts" to Eugene to teach police from multiple agencies about "Hate in America Today- a National Overview of Far Right Domestic Terrorism." You will recall that in the brave new world of Obama, "right wing terrorists" include gun owners, Constitutionalists, military veterans and supporters of limited government.

Readers of this blog know I have long admired from afar the activities of the New Hampshire "Free Staters". One of the best ideas they have had is an emergency communications network dubbed Porcupine 411. Now I learn they want to spread their idea nationwide. God Bless them!

Gun rights supporters are up in arms over a pair of moves the White House made last month to reverse longstanding U.S. policy and begin negotiating a gun control treaty with the United Nations.

Early in the morning of Dec. 5, 1999, off-duty Las Vegas police officer Dennis Devitte was one of the customers at Mr. D's Sportsbar & Grill, at Rainbow and Oakey boulevards, where he and some pals had gone to hear the band Pigs in a Blanket. A little after 1 a.m., three armed robbers charged through the back door with guns drawn and their faces covered with T-shirts or bandanas. "I'd only been in the bar a short time and was talking to friends," Mr. Devitte later told an interviewer for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "I saw...

In any case it is certainly not the job of We, The Abused to walk on eggshells lest we somehow be condemned for our righteous wrath when They, The Abusers are unpunished, unrepentant and unrestrained. If that is the message of Mike Vanderboegh he must be ignored. Miniature Fort Sumters occur around us all every day, from the unprovoked SWAT assault on a completely innocent family based on the undocumented testimony of a “Confidential Informant” CLICK LINK HERE to the unprovoked investigation of a family for “illegal food sales”.CLICK LINK HERE or CLICK LINK HERE They all share the same...

Back in late October, I wrote "Brady Campaign hypocrisy," chiding the Brady Campaign--specifially, their Vice President for Law and Policy, Dennis Henigan--for his accusation that the "gun lobby" tries to hide the truth. This accusation positively reeks of hypocrisy, on a couple levels. First, Henigan himself, in arguing on a video clip that the Second Amendment did nothing to protect the individual's right to keep and bear arms, recited the amendment in its entirety--except for the "of the people" part--the very part that poses the biggest problem for the now discredited "collective rights" interpretation of the Second Amendment. Second, when...

Well, so much for the "scrapping the long gun registry is an appalling slap in the face of Canadian public opinion" narrative. A Canadian Press/Harris Decima poll released today finds 46% of Canadians believe abolishing the long gun registry is a good idea, while 41% think it's a bad idea. Sub-populations amongst which more people would prefer to scrap the registry than keep it include NDP voters, Green Party voters, Ontarians, and women. Ouch! The populists-of-convenience who embraced/twisted the hell out of that three-year-old Ipsos poll showing two-thirds of us would prefer to have some kind of gun registration process...

I’ve always been a history buff at heart and more recently an avid gun enthusiast, but most importantly, a supporter of Second Amendment rights. There’s a difference between just shooting guns and knowing the vast history behind our right to do so. Jesse Trimble The United States, as a country and before it was a country, has had a long history of flags — specifically, flags relating to our independence when we were at war with Great Britain. Many may come to mind, such as the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, also known as the Gadsden flag, which is yellow...

<p>SOMERVILLE, N.J. (AP) ― A quadriplegic in New Jersey has the right to bear arms even though he can't hold a gun or pull a trigger.</p> <p>A judge ruled Tuesday that James Cap is eligible for a firearms ID, which is required to buy a gun.</p>

A "push in Congress for broader gun rights is threatening to derail Amtrak and stall a transportation spending bill," wrote Walter Alarkon on thehill.com on Oct. 25. "Gun-rights advocates in Congress are pressing appropriators to keep a provision that would let Amtrak passengers check in handguns with their baggage." The provision, which calls for withholding $1.5 billion in Amtrak funding if the policy isn't implemented before April, was inserted into the $68.8 billion Senate transportation and Housing and Urban Development spending bill as an amendment. All 40 Republicans, 27 Democrats and one admitted socialist voted for the amendment, sponsored by...

HOUSTON—A grand jury will decide whether to press charges against a pregnant woman who, police say, shot and killed a burglar. The ordeal began when the unidentified woman saw a group of men allegedly breaking into cars at her apartment complex on Pinemont in northwest Houston late Monday night. When the group moved on to her car, the woman, who is eight-months pregnant, said she fired a shotgun from her balcony. One of the men died, say police. The others fled the scene in a black truck.

Gun Rights: A decade after Congress forbade the CDC from studying the health consequences of gun ownership, the National Institutes of Health has started funding such research. Will reform pry the guns from our cold, sick hands? More than a decade ago Congress, seeing it as a backdoor assault on the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control. Such research was viewed as one-sided and based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even that which saved lives and deterred crime. --...

Based on legislation and case law, the U.S. government's attitude toward increased rights for gun owners has been more favorable in recent years than ever before.In the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for private use. It was the first Supreme Court case in U.S. history to directly address whether the right to keep and bear arms is a right of individuals in addition to a collective right that applies to state-regulated militias.As a result, additional pleas to increase...

Gun Rights: A decade after Congress forbade the CDC from studying the health consequences of gun ownership, the National Institutes of Health has started funding such research. Will reform pry the guns from our cold, sick hands? More than a decade ago Congress, seeing it as a backdoor assault on the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control. Such research was viewed as one-sided and based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even that which saved lives and deterred crime. The...

In the 1920s and 1930s, Jehovah's Witnesses were viewed by many with the same horror and loathing gun owners receive today. So the 1920s and 1930s saw widespread state and local legislation against Jehovah's Witnesses, and though the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and religion, it took 30 to 40 years of careful litigation--patiently piling up precedents to achieve the overthrow of those laws by the Supreme Court. The relevance of the Witnesses' experience to gun owners is that it will take at least that many years of patient, careful litigation to remove the morass of senseless anti-gun...

Under fire from the Milwaukee Police Department for selling guns used in crimes, the owner of Badger Guns boasted last week he has a close working relationship with his local police department in West Milwaukee. "West Milwaukee knows what we do," Adam Allan told Milwaukee aldermen during a hearing on gun laws. "We always are having felons taken out of there." Data from the West Milwaukee Police Department tells a different story. So does the village's police chief. Police calls to the store dropped sharply beginning in 2007, the year Allan took over the store, according to a Journal Sentinel...

When the city's top cop and county's top prosecutor want to open the door for a concealed-carry gun law in Wisconsin, it seems the writing may be on the wall. Police Chief Edward Flynn and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm told a City Hall committee last week that allowing concealed-carry permits in Wisconsin could ultimately make things safer for everyone. Specifically, they said, if the state issued such permits under a tough eligibility process and coupled that with more stringent background checks for all gun purchases, the number of illegally sold weapons could be cut across the board. The...

Two powerful Milwaukee leaders on Wednesday floated the idea of allowing concealed-carry gun permits in Wisconsin as part of a larger package of gun law reforms - marking a departure with Mayor Tom Barrett on the hot issue. Police Chief Edward Flynn and District Attorney John Chisholm said allowing concealed-carry weapon permits must be coupled with other changes such as requiring background checks on all gun purchases in Wisconsin. Currently, only federally licensed gun stores have to do such checks in the state. Allowing concealed-carry permits has long been a top priority for gun-rights advocates. Conversely, gun-control advocates have pushed...

Forty-four percent favor stricter laws on firearm sales PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup finds a new low of 44% of Americans saying the laws covering firearm sales should be made more strict. That is down 5 points in the last year and 34 points from the high of 78% recorded the first time the question was asked, in 1990.Today, Americans are as likely to say the laws governing gun sales should be kept as they are now (43%) as to say they should be made more strict. Until this year, Gallup had always found a significantly higher percentage advocating stricter laws....

We reported recently that the California Legislature passed AB 962. This bill would require anyone buying pistol ammo to provide drivers’ license #, address, and a thumbprint. And, because AB 962 requires all pistol ammo sales to be “face to face”, the law would effectively ban mail-order ammo sales in California. While AB 962 targets pistol ammo sales, it could also apply to any type of rifle ammo that has been used in pistols (including single-shots). That would include 22LR, 22 rimfire magnum, .223 Rem, 6BR, 30-30, .308 Winchester, and more. Opposition Efforts Gain Strength Right now, unless CA Governor...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, has joined the bipartisan Second Amendment Task Force (SATF). Members of this group act as a unified and proactive force to promote legislation that protects the Second Amendment and to fight legislation that poses a threat to citizens’ Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. "Now, more than ever before, it will be necessary to maintain a vigilant eye against real efforts to disarm the American people," said Rehberg, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus. "Montanans sent me to Washington, D.C. to represent them. And as their...

To begin know it is said amongst the knowledgeable North Carolina is sprinkled with a number of “sweet spots” where a fellow can stand in an open field and box the compass in four opposite directions (North,East,South and West) for a few hundred yards and find himself under four conflicting sets of hunting regulations........... The leading (current) contender for complete Alice-In-Wonderland-Mad-Hatter “the law is ours to know and yours to find out” bureaucracy is DUPLIN COUNTY.......

A good example of just how treacherous modern hunting has become. Regulation trumps common sense and everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Two fathers and their sons went hunting in Brinnon on Saturday, but after legally downing an elk with a muzzleloading rifle, they found themselves staring down the barrels of guns pointed at them by uniformed officers of the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe. "The whole thing was handled way wrong," said Don Phipps, who shot the elk. "I've never had anyone pull a gun on me in my whole life. I didn't understand it."

Our friend the Welshman from The Liberty Sphere has an excellent analysis of the Chicago 2nd Amendment Incorporation Case. The comments section offers some further intriguing thoughts. Stop by and add your two cents. Tantalizing Excerpt: Rationality, it would seem, would dictate that it is a no-brainer that the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights automatically extend to all of the state and local governments. What good is free speech or a free press, for example, if the Constitution is meant only to restrict Congress from encroaching on those rights but leaves state and local governments with the power...

Whatever significance is attached to Chicago’s failed bid to host the 2016 Olympics, it is of small importance to the rest of the country. More far-reaching and frightening is the Supreme Court’s decision to take up a case challenging the city’s ban on handgun ownership in the court’s new term, which begins this week. The case is best considered a preview of coming attractions. The gun lobby, if it wins in the Supreme Court, is prepared to challenge every gun control law enacted at any level of government. It will usher in a scary season of assault on the common...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that it would decide whether state and local gun control laws may be challenged under the Second Amendment. The court also agreed to hear nine other cases from among those that had piled up over its summer break, including one concerning the constitutionality of an antiterrorism law that is a favorite tool of federal prosecutors. The Second Amendment case, McDonald v. Chicago, No. 08-1521, addresses a question that was left open last year when the court decided that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own firearms rather than a collective...

Some of the readers here have received a response from Holden Thorp, the UNC Chancellor who canned a gun-owning professor for stating in an email he was prepared to defend himself in response to political enemies posting hateful fliers with his home address.

Gun Control: The Supreme Court agrees to decide if the Second Amendment applies to all of us, or just Washington, D.C. Why would the Founders put in the Bill of Rights something applying only to a federal enclave? In a 5-4 decision last year written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court overturned a draconian District of Columbia gun ban enacted 32 years ago that barred private ownership of handguns at all. Scalia wrote that an individual's right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted. The court ruled that...

The question of boys and hunting keeps coming up at our house, and again the other day when the boys walked off the soccer field after a game. "Can we have a dog?" asked one of my eighth-graders. The other twin loves to play with dogs, too. He's kind with them and calm, and dogs and little kids like him. For now, though, he refuses to do what is necessary. "I'm not going out with a bag and pick up the you-know-what. It's not happening. Not gonna do it," he declares, and in this, we believe him. But his brother...

Apparently the population of stupid children and even dumber parents has grown so large in North Carolina it is now necessary to ban the retail sale of novelty cigarette lighters. EVERY novelty cigarette lighter that resembles a cartoon character,toy,gun,watch, musical instrument, vehicle, animal, food or beverage, or SIMILAR articles( Heaven only knows what THAT means!) is banned for retail sale. So that clever .50 Caliber Cartridge you keep on your desk to light cigars? Gone baby, gone.

Officer, 44, shot in arm while serving search warrant on north side; police arrest 6 in house; top officials seek tougher laws to keep guns from felons Another Milwaukee police officer was shot Wednesday morning - the fourth this year - and hours later city leaders announced a drive for tougher gun laws in Wisconsin to keep firearms away from felons. The 44-year-old officer was shot in the left arm while trying to serve a search warrant at a house in the 3200 block of N. 12th St., police said. The 17-year veteran was in good condition at Froedtert Hospital...

(Corrected) Gun Control: In a case headed for the Supreme Court, a three-judge panel rules Chicago's gun ban constitutional since the 2nd Amendment doesn't apply to states and cities. High court nominee Sonia Sotomayor concurs.Those Pennsylvania townsfolk bitterly clinging to their guns may have been premature in celebrating the decision in D.C. v. Heller that the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does indeed guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms.

* Last year, when the Supreme Court struck down a ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., some municipalities saw the writing on the wall and repealed similar laws. Chicago, however, chose to fight. On Wednesday, the court set up the final battle by agreeing to decide whether the city's ordinance violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution. For those who favor strict regulation of handguns, that development is not good news. It opens the way for the court to invalidate a 26-year-oldban on weapons that are often used in murders and other crimes.

LONDON– A campaign warning girls not to stash or carry guns for their boyfriends was launched by London police Wednesday. The hard-hitting adverts, which are aimed at 15 to 19-year-olds of African and African Caribbean heritage, are designed to combat a worrying growth in the number of young women being arrested and convicted of possessing weapons. "This year's campaign has been designed to tackle an emerging and concerning trend," "Sadly, young women have always been involved in carrying and storing firearms," said Claudia Webbe, chairman of Trident's Independent Advisory Group. "We are deeply concerned, however, that this involvement seems to...

The 2nd Amendment is about to arrive in Chicago--which is good news for citizens who see a need to have a handgun in the home for protection against the city's many criminals. It's bad news for Mayor Daley and other supporters of the existing ban on handguns, one of the most draconian in the nation. Chicago has long behaved as though gun owners don't have any rights. It is probably going to find out they do. Last year, the Supreme Court struck down a similar Washington, D.C. ordinance banning handguns. "The Second Amendment," it found, "protects an individual's right to...

Cops are hunting [for] a knife-wielding suspect who stabbed a young dad to death after a seemingly minor altercation outside the main post office in Manhattan. Christopher Gutierrez, 20, bumped into his killer along Eighth Ave. near W. 33rd St. early Sunday evening and, after just a few words were exchanged, the man flew into a rage, police said. He twice plunged a knife into Gutierrez's chest - and then calmly walked away. Bleeding profusely, Gutierrez collapsed on the steps of the James A. Farley Post Office, police said. He died soon after. The victim's mom was devastated that her...

The UN General Assembly has been in session, and if typical of them, nasty things are probably in store for American gun owners as a result. The Citizen's Committee For The Right To Keep and Bear Arms (CCKRBA), in a recent mailing, said that The UN is still actively pursuing the guns you own, and the ones you want to buy. Don't count out associated non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as The International Network On Small Arms (IANSA.) IANSA's Rebecca Peters was largely responsible for the disarming of Australians and the associated increase in violent crimes there as a result of...

Derrion Albert, 16, Was Killed In Thursday Attack Caught On Tape ....Silvonus Shannon, 19; Eric Carson, 16; Eugene Riley, 18; and Eugene Bailey, 18, allegedly kicked and punched Derrion, an innocent bystander in a fight between two groups of students near the South Side school Thursday afternoon, according to Cook County prosecutors... The assault, which was captured on videotape, was not gang-related but arose from a disagreement between students who live in Altgeld Gardens and another group who live in an area known as the "Ville," according to Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Jodi Peterson...

Here is the flier circulating on UNC-Chapel Hill Campus about which Chancellor Holden Thorp HAS NOTHING to say! Apparently to falsely label a Professor Emeritus in good standing as a White Supremacist and “suggest” neighbors and friends “contact him” at his home address is just ordinary campus rhetoric-all in good fun. When the Professor *all in good fun* “suggests” he is a crack shot he is summarily reprimanded and removed as advisor to a student group! Good Grief! The Chancellor of a major University no longer feels compelled to even go through the motions of impartiality any

Published : Saturday, 26 Sep 2009, 10:00 PM EDT * By Darlene Hill, FOX Chicago News This is the hard lesson some students at Fenger High School have to deal with after a day of learning. For them it's a hard lesson of reality on the streets. Thursday after school, two rival gangs got into a fight three blocks from the high school. In all four students were beaten in that melee -- one was released from the hospital Friday morning.

GREENVILLE S.C. -- A candidate for South Carolina’s Adjutant General found a high-powered way to appeal to supporters over the weekend. Dean Allen held a drawing for an AK-47 at a fundraiser in Greenville on Saturday. The event, called a “Machine Gun Social,” was held at Allen Arms Indoor Range on Poinsett Highway. For $25, donors were given a barbeque lunch and twenty shots with a machine gun. A free drawing determined the winner of the semi-automatic AK-47, valued at $700.

Some judges on an 11-member panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared to agree with gun-rights advocates that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, recently interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court to protect an individual's right to own guns, is binding on the states and can be used to challenge the county ordinance.

Yakima Mayor Edler recently announced that he joined Mayor Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG). Yakima is dealing with a string of gang-related shootings that have rocked the City of Yakima. MAIG’s Mission Statement declares: “We support the Second Amendment and the rights of citizens to own guns.”   The anti-gun mayors’ group does not support the right to bear arms, however. MAIG has stated that “a policy that is appropriate for a small town in one region of the country is not necessarily appropriate for a big city in another region of the country.” Many of the positions taken...

“Thanks for your concern; I have a Colt 45 and I know how to use it. I used to be able to hit a quarter at 50 feet 7 times out of 10.” Those were the words from Professor Emeritus Elliot Cramer to a student concerned about the Professor’s safety that prompted UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp to demand Cramer’s resignation as advisor to the Youth For Western Civilization Student Group. Apparently discussions about prowess in matters of self defense are not protected speech in the enlightened corridors of North Carolina’s Taxpayer Funded Public Universities. Send your expressions of outrage and...

Freepers, as they refer to themselves, are at best a wild and woolly bunch whose message board discussions can evoke images of barroom brawls as portrayed in a John Wayne Western. (You know, the visiting Ingénue sits on the bar with a teapot as she waits for a chance to smash it on the head of an evildoer as they coast past her position while Granny knits quietly in the corner and trips everyone who comes within range) And Codrea is a professional gun magazine writer whose online commentary frequently includes obscure sentences of the *We discussed that HERE(HTML Link)...

I finally got some of my images gathered, resized, and tweaked. Many of them are posted at our local tea party web site at http://www.chattanoogateaparty.com/resources/photo-gallery/washington-dc-september-12-2009/. Here's a few of them... The crowd... A true patriot... Joe was quite popular... No left turn... Some of my local cohorts with our banner... Who is John Galt... And my personal favorite... The march and rally was an amazing event. Just amazing! So many friendly people, all with a common cause!

examiner.com — On September 8, 2009, United States District Judge Bruce D. Black of the United States District Court for New Mexico entered summary judgment in a civil case for damages against Alamogordo, NM police officers. The Judge’s straight shootin’ message to police: Leave open carriers alone unless you have “reason to believe that a crime [is] afoot.” . . .