Free Republic

Image of Old Groaner's skull from the front. The bear's left eye arch is intact. Thanks to Hayley Chambers of the Ketchikan Museums for pictures of Old Groaner's skull.In the first three segments of this series, the formation of the myth of Old Groaner was discussed.In segment I, the original article, published in February of 1936, almost certainly written less than two months after Old Groaner was killed, is detailed. Old Groaner was killed in November of 1935. It takes time to put a paper magazine together and to print it, especially in 1936.In segment II, the 1953 re-write and...

The original illustration by F.W Gabler was changed for the 1953 and 1986 re-writes of the article.This is the part III in a series of four segments on the Old Groaner legend.In segment I, the original article, published in the February 1936 issue of Alaska Sportsman is examined.In segment II, the 1953 re-write and some of the major changes in the rewrite are examined.We may never know why the many changes were made to the Old Groaner story when it was re-written by W.H. "Handlogger" Jackson and published in the March issue of the 1953 Alaskan Sportsman as "The Moaning...

Picture of Old Groaner skull, left side, from Tongass Historical Society. The left eye arch is intact. Picture courtesy Hayley Chambers.In the previous article, the story of Old Groaner, as told in 1936, was recounted. The bear was killed as it attacked the dog Slasher and Bruce Johnstone in the middle reaches of the Unuk river, in November of 1935. This correspondent differentiated speculation from claimed fact. The bear's head was brought back to Ketchikan. If the skull had been complete, it would have been a world record. The original article was written by F. W. Gabler.In the image above,...

Part I. The events which started the storyIn early November 1935, at the upper reaches of the Unuk river in Southeastern Alaska, prospector, trapper, and logger, Bruce Johnstone, shot a near-world record grizzly bear in self-defense. The bear had been shot in the head previously but had survived and healed, leaving the skull deformed and the bear blind on the right side.The skull was brought back to Ketchikan. The story was published in the February 1936 issue of the struggling Alaska Sportsman, written by F. W. Gabler. Gabler interviewed the shooter, Bruce Johnstone. Both Johnstone and Gabler were longtime residents...

The Supreme Court’s nine fine minds are about to ponder the meaning of a verb. What they decide will have important state and municipal policy consequences. How they decide — their reasoning — might have momentous implications for how the current court construes the Constitution.The Second Amendment — “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” — includes a 13-word preamble that was not explicitly interpreted until 217 years after the amendment’s ratification in 1791. The court decided in 2008 that...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in an en banc panel, has found there is no “Right to Bear Arms” in the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. The majority opinion was written by Judge Bybee. The case is the long-delayed Young v. State of Hawaii. It will undoubtedly be appealed to the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS). Whether SCOTUS will grant a writ of Certiorari is unknown at this time. SCOTUS has refused to grant a hearing to nearly all Second Amendment cases for over a decade.On 15 June, of 2020, SCOTUS refused to hear ten pending Second...

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — Grizzly bears continue to expand their range amid an ongoing effort to turn over management of the bears from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, a federal official said. “We’ve seen an 11 percent change in increasing range in just a couple of years,” Frank van Manen, head scientist of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, said last week at a meeting in Jackson. Since coming under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, grizzlies have steadily expanded their habitat outward from the population’s core in Yellowstone National...

Donnie's former apartment complex A week or two ago I wrote about how a former Marine fought off an attempted home invasion.  He managed to fire three shots, and it appeared that no one was hit. As I visited a local gas station, I ran into Donnie again.  He is a large, powerful black man, he makes an impression.  We shook hands and I told him that the article had been published.  He had not seen it yet, because he is in the middle of a move.  He did not say; but I suspect it was a decision precipitated...

A Texas police chief who warns President Barack Obama in a social media video that trying to disarm Americans would "cause a revolution in this country" is the latest law enforcement official to urge citizens to arm themselves in the wake of mass shootings. Randy Kennedy, longtime chief in the small East Texas town of Hughes Springs, about 120 miles east of Dallas, says in the video posted this week on his personal Facebook page that the Second Amendment was established to protect people from criminals and "terrorists and radical ideology." "It's also there to protect us against a government...

The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Peruta v. San Diego, released minutes ago, affirms the right of law-abiding citizens to carry handguns for lawful protection in public. California law has a process for applying for a permit to carry a handgun for protection in public, with requirements for safety training, a background check, and so on. These requirements were not challenged. The statute also requires that the applicant have “good cause,” which was interpreted by San Diego County to mean that the applicant is faced with current specific threats. (Not all California counties have this narrow interpretation.) The Ninth Circuit, in...

You might think the question would be settled by now, but the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to opine on whether the Second Amendment right to “bear” arms for self-defense extends outside the home. We may soon get an answer. Lyle Denniston, writing for the Constitution Daily, reports about two gun rights cases that may get a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Both cases, dealing with restrictions on the ability of minors to possess weapons in public, hinge on the difference between the right to “keep” a gun and a right “bear” one. The National Rifle Association thinks the...

The statement at issue: There is “a growing line of court of appeals decisions that, while stopping short of holding that there is no Second Amendment right outside the home, consistently reach the same result by deeming any right to bear arms in public to be, at best, outside the Second Amendment’s ‘core’ and then balancing it away under an anemic form of intermediate scrutiny.” – Charles J. Cooper, a Washington, D.C., attorney for the National Rifle Association, in a brief filed at the Supreme Court on Monday, urging the Justices to strike down a law that bans minors from...

A 30-year-old man who allegedly tried to rob a Southeast Portland bar with a sawed-off shotgun early this morning got far more than he bargained for when he ran into an employee who goes by the nickname "Stub." Instead of leaving with cash, the man was hauled off in an ambulance.

BELLEVUE, Wash., Jan. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The New Jersey Attorney General's motion to dismiss a recently-filed Second Amendment Foundation lawsuit against the state's subjective handgun carry laws was "predictable and disappointing," SAF said today. The lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Garden State's "justifiable need" gun permit standard also involves the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs and six private citizens. It was filed in November in federal court. The Attorney General's brief asserted, "When a handgun is carried in public, the serious risks and dangers of misuse and accidental use are borne by the public." "That...

Montana officials are warning that if the Supreme Court rules in the D.C. gun ban case that the right to keep and bear arms protects only state-run militias like the National Guard, then the federal government will have breached Montana's statehood contract. Nobody is raising flags for the Republic of Montana, but nobody is kidding, either. So far, 39 elected Montana officials have signed a resolution declaring that a court ruling of the Second Amendment is a right of states and not of individuals would violate Montana's compact. "The U.S. would do well to keep its contractual promise to the...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - The Republican-controlled Congress delivered a long-sought victory to the gun industry on Thursday when the House voted to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from liability lawsuits. The bill now goes to President Bush, who has promised to sign it. The gun liability bill has for years been the No. 1 legislative priority of the National Rifle Association, which has lobbied lawmakers intensely for it. Its final passage, by a vote of 283 to 144, with considerable Democratic support, reflected the changing politics of gun control, an issue many Democrats began shying away from after Al Gore,...

Please enter link to view my article. J. Scott Davis for Congress (California's 48th District for U.S. House Representative) - "Right To Bear Arms."

Please enter link to view my article.

The Oregon State Legislature will soon be considering a bill that would outlaw semiautomatic "assault rifles" and large-capacity magazines and require registration of these items purchased before the bill's effective date. However, any attempt to prohibit an individual citizen's right to own a firearm represents a gross misunderstanding not only of U.S. Constitutional Law, but also of the basic principles of human nature that caused the Framers to specifically pronounce that right in the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Every constitutional scholar recognizes that the Framers composed the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution as a reaction to the...

Under the “collective right” view, the Second Amendment is a federalism provision that provides to States a prerogative to establish and maintain armed and organized militia units akin to the National Guard, and only States may assert this prerogative. (1) There is Always a Kernel of Truth in Any Good Propaganda Today’s “progressive” interpretation of the Second Amendment contends that the militia was intended by the Founders to mean organized state armies. For clarification, let us examine the writings of Alexander Hamilton, one of the leaders of the Federalist movement during the debates that created our Constitution. In his writings,...