Free Republic

The increasing personal nastiness toward people who work for President Trump reflects the left’s understanding that they are losing. Nastiness reflects desperation not strength. They can’t win the argument so they use nastiness. Sad and dangerous.

Protestors are occupying Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) facilities across the country, inspired by a Portland protest that resulted in the indefinite shutdown of an ICE detention center on Wednesday. "Occupy ICE" protestors are blocking the loading deck of ICE headquarters in New York, have set up tents in front of an ICE facility in Los Angeles, and are gathered outside of a detention center in Washington state. Though the protests are not led by any one group, the Democratic Socialists of America are involved in most states, alongside groups associated with prison abolition, immigration rights and anarchist collectives. The...

A Medieval Studies professor called the National Rifle Association a “terrorist organization” hours after the Santa Fe, Texas school shooting that killed 10 people Friday. “The NRA is a terrorist organization,” tweeted Matthew Gabriele, a tenured professor at Virginia Tech University. Tracy Vosburgh, a Virginia Tech spokesperson, told Fox News the anti-NRA tweet doesn’t represent the university. “Mr. Gabriele’s views are his and his alone,” Vosburgh said. “Any comment on his statement should come from him.” Gabriele declined to comment when reached, but he described himself in a tweetstorm as “a white dude with tenure who doesn’t give a s***”...

Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers owner, Paul Allen, is pushing a Washington State gun control initiative in response to the May 18 Santa Fe High School shooting. The initiative, No. 1639, is called “Safe Schools, Safe Communities,” and it expands the gun controls placed on law-abiding citizens via the universal background check initiative that passed in 2014. Allen tweeted: Paul Allen ✔ @PaulGAllen 18h My statement on a gun safety initiative in my home state of Washington: Initiative 1639 is a reasonable and necessary measure that will improve the safety of our schools and our communities, which is why...

Not that long ago, cigarettes were completely woven into American culture. The Marlboro Man, posters telling us that “more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette,” even the armrests on planes and all our cars were designed for smokers. And now? Not so much. Can it work like that with guns? (snip) I grew up surrounded by cigarette smoke. My dad smoked. So did practically everyone else I knew. But my kids? Totally different. They saw someone smoking in a restaurant while we were traveling abroad recently and they freaked out, like they’d witnessed a beheading. Inconceivable in their world.

On the first day back in class after a gunman killed 10 people inside Santa Fe High School in Texas, two students at nearby schools allegedly came to campus with guns, officials said, while school threats were allegedly reported at three other nearby schools. student at Hargrave High School was found to have a gun in his backpack, the Huffman Independent School District said in a statement on Facebook. The student "was intending to harm himself," the district said, and the student and backpack were taken into custody. The school was placed on lockdown as a precaution, the district said....

Liberals always seem to be declaring they only want bans or restrictions on certain types of guns. Added to that is their declaration of support for the Second Amendment. However, once in a while, one of those liberals lets their mask drop and makes their true intention known. Such a person is the editor-at-large Dave Holmes of Esquire magazine who flat out declared in the wake of the school shootings in Texas on Friday that he wants to ban all guns. Here is Holmes saying what most other liberals are careful to keep under wraps in Okay, Now I Actually...

Teenagers armed themselves with a megaphone and gathered outside the Governor’s Mansion in downtown Austin Sunday night to try and get attention for their cause. “Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott, Texas legislators -- for as long as this is happening, we will stand to make sure that common-sense gun laws are enacted,” yelled one of the speakers through the device... The students also staged a “die-in,” laying down on the ground for 23 minutes as if they were dead -- one minute for every school shooting since the start of the school year... These students also want to end the culture...

Las Vegas introduced Americans to the rapid-fire lethality of bump stocks. Parkland reminded the public how quickly someone can inflict mass carnage with an AR-15, the weapon of choice in many rampages. But Friday's shooting at Santa Fe High School, which left 10 dead, was carried out with a pistol and a shotgun - firearms that even gun-control advocates generally regard as utilitarian. The reality that weapons not included in proposed assault-rifle bans can still exact a double-digit death toll further complicates a wrenching national debate about how to prevent future tragedies. "That's true" that weapons other than assault rifles...

There’s a new face on the age-old gun debate: our students, and they won’t be silenced. They are demanding that the adults in power keep them safe and they will not stand by and allow elected officials to fail them any longer.

Former Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday that it was "tragically necessary" for parents to pull their children out of school en masse until U.S. gun laws are changed. In a tweet, the former Obama administration official asked what would happen if no children went to school until "gun laws changed to keep them safe." "My family is all in if we can do this at scale. Parents, will you please join us?" he asked.

On Friday, a gunman opened fire at Santa Fe High School in Texas, killing several people and injuring many more. Mere hours after the attack, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton responded to the Santa Fe shooting with a tweet, stating that politicians who refuse to take action to reduce gun violence are "failing our children." Clinton, 70, has been a staunch proponent of gun control reform for years, dating back to her time as a senator from New York. During the 2016 presidential campaign, she ran on reinstating the assault weapons ban, expanding background checks, and restricting people suffering...

Listen, I know the moments after a gunman opens fire in a school are hectic for you. You have to get your talking points together, you have to mentally prepare to debate a traumatized yet sensible child, you have to look at yourself in the mirror and practice saying that more guns would have made the situation less deadly. It’s a busy time! And since we are always either in the moments after or the moments before a mass shooting, you’re pretty much always busy, I have noticed! Anyway, I just wanted to drop you a line and let you...

After the passion of March for Our Lives, some groups see the best hope for legislative success in states such as Washington and OregonThough America has seen a string of mass shootings over the past year, no gun control legislation has been passed at the federal level.Three months after 17 people were killed and 17 injured at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, leading to a national push for reform led by student survivors, the debate has shifted, from Capitol Hill to states across the country.As November’s midterm elections approach, advocates of stricter gun laws hope to place...

We don’t always delve down to the level of state and local politics, but this rather curious story caught my attention this week. A Democratic state representative in New Hampshire, Katherine Rogers, has stepped over the line and dared to tread where most Granite State residents would never set foot. She’s not just pushing for tougher gun control laws, but suggesting that recent talk about repealing the Second Amendment is “a discussion we should have.” (New Hampshire Journal)

RAHWAY — A longtime Democratic operative from Union County has responded to the Wednesday shooting of a congressman by calling for a “hunt” of Republicans. James Devine posted several messages on Facebook and Twitter following the Alexandra, Virginia, shooting of U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise and several others by a gunman with a history of violence and of making online rantings against Republican officials and their policies.

Most other developed nations already have a VAT -- a system in which taxes are paid by each business in the different stages of production of a good or service, and, ultimately, directly or indirectly, by the consumer. VAT is considered a consumption tax, since it taxes what people consume, rather than how much they earn or their profits from investment. That's also a reason why some consider it unfair for lower-income households. And critics say it could let government take a bigger slice of the overall economic pie, enabling higher spending. Its supporters, meanwhile, say VAT is better for...

MATTHEW BRACKEN is a former Navy SEAL (BUD/S Class 105), a Constitutionalist, and a self-described “freedomista”. He’s the author of several books, including Enemies Foreign and Domestic. This is the first part in a series of different author’s thoughts on the next civil war. Here’s what Bracken sees as a potential scenario for the next American Civil War. The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights does not “grant” Americans the right to armed self-defense, it simply recognizes and affirms this God-given human right. The Constitution, including the Bill or Rights, is a very succinct document that was written in...

"We are going to bring disarmament and peace," Reverol told reporters, while police officers drilled and sawed at rusty shotguns, home made pistols and some newer weapons. While the Venezuelan government and liberal western media will frame this move as an effort to reduce crime, it's about keeping the citizenry defenseless against the government in a time of complete societal breakdown. The government has come for guns belonging to Venezuelans before in the name of "safety," coupled with promises of lower crime. Both lies. Over to you, Gabby Franco:

In 2016, Americans continue to break records for gun sales.  While the National Instant Check System (NICS) does not track gun sales directly, the numbers are highly correlated. The numbers of NICS checks, and the increase in private firearms, have skyrocketed during the Obama administration.The total for 2016 through the end of May is 11,698,006 instant checks. That is more than the entire year of 2007, which held the record up to that year. Thus, during the Obama years, the number of private firearm sales has doubled.  In 2015, the highest year on record, the total number of checks...