Free Republic

The 1994 federal law banning "assault weapons" was a high point of the gun control movement and Bill Clinton's presidency. Signing the bill, he said it was the beginning of "our effort to restore safety and security to the people of this country." But something happened that he and his allies had not predicted: nothing. Duke University scholars Philip Cook and Kristin Goss, who are sympathetic to gun control efforts, assessed the ban in a book published this year and concluded, "There is no compelling evidence that it saved lives." A 2004 study led by Christopher Koper of the University...

Political trends come and go in response to events. Gun control was the rage during the Clinton administration, but over the past decade or so it became an obsolete cause. After the horrific crimes in Newtown and Aurora, though, it's staging a comeback. One thing hasn't changed: The agenda includes mostly measures that will have little or no effect on the problems they are supposed to address. They are Potemkin remedies—presentable facades with empty space behind them. This is something that supporters as well as opponents labor to conceal. Treating them as serious allows them both to posture for their...

For urban politicians, gun control is like the bar in "Cheers" — a place of refuge they can seek out whenever things aren't going well. Things aren't going well on the crime front in Chicago, with homicides up 25 percent this year. So what else can our elected leaders do but promise action against guns? Action against the possession and use of guns by violent felons would be a good idea, but the proposal offered by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is something else: a penalty on nonviolent citizens who bear no blame for the carnage.

When someone is ill or anxious to avoid illness, he may be open to any possible treatments. That's why quack remedies, untested formulas and obvious placebos often find takers. When a mass shooting occurs, the urge to find a cure is powerful. As a rule, though, those that emerge are the practical equivalent of sugar pills. A nation with very few guns, exceedingly tight firearms restrictions and little interest in such weaponry would not experience these atrocities as often as ours does. But in a society with hundreds of millions of guns and huge demand for them, as well as...

As any debater knows, defining the issue is a major part of the battle. On Tuesday, Democrats failed to persuade the Senate to approve the Paycheck Fairness Act. What are we to conclude from that outcome? That paychecks will be unfair, to the detriment of America's working women. That's the claim of those supporting the legislation. President Barack Obama said it would merely mandate "equal pay for equal work." Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, warned beforehand that failing to pass the bill would send "the message to little girls across the country that their work is less valuable...

Pittsburgh detectives questioned a woman for nearly 12 hours about a bizarre robbery in the Downtown hotel room of a Cincinnati Reds pitcher, in part because she changed her story. Claudia Manrique, 26, of Silver Spring, Md., initially said she was attacked late Tuesday by a stranger posing as a maintenance man at the Omni William Penn who tied her up and made off with valuables belonging to pitcher Aroldis Chapman.

MIAMI -- A major league pitcher who defected from Cuba is being sued for $18 million by a Cuban-American man imprisoned on the communist island. The lawsuit was filed recently in Miami federal court against Aroldis Chapman, a left-handed pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds. The lawsuit claims Chapman falsely accused Danilo Curbelo Garcia of involvement in human trafficking, leading to his 2008 arrest and conviction in Cuba. Curbelo Garcia is serving a 10-year sentence. Chapman defected in 2009 in the Netherlands and was signed a year later by the Reds to a six-year, $30.25 million contract. The lawsuit claims Chapman...

Vlad the impaler: Putin may have had affair with ex-spy ChapmanBy ANDY SOLTIS Last Updated: 7:14 AM, April 24, 2012 Vladimir Putin may have had an affair with sexy former spy Anna Chapman — which might have knocked the Russian president’s wife of 29 years out of the spotlight, Kremlin watchers say. Putin, 59, is an ever-present figure in the Russian media but has been shown just twice with his 54-year-old wife, Lyudmila, in the last two years. Ex-Manhattanite Chapman, 30, who was booted to Moscow in a 2010 spy swap, soon emerged as a key player...

A female Russian agent got "close enough" to a sitting U.S. cabinet member that the FBI felt they had to swoop in and arrest the lot -- but it wasn't the famous femme fatale Anna Chapman, federal officials said today. .................................................... But Figliuzzi never named the Russian agent in question, even if the BBC ran images of Chapman -- as well as shots of a look-a-like -- during the interview, and now the FBI says he wasn't talking about her at all. Instead, Justice Department officials told ABC News Figliuzzi was referring to another of the arrested spies, Cynthia Murphy.

The 1950s are often recalled as a golden age in American life — stable families, rising incomes, wholesome TV shows and low crime rates. Doesn't sound like 2011, does it? When it comes to crime, though, there is a striking similarity: We are, believe it or not, in a new golden age. Crime has never subsided as a topic for local news or prime-time detective shows. Anyone looking for reasons to fear going out of the house can find plenty. But the truth is our streets are safer than they have been in a long time. The latest evidence came...

American tax-payers learned recently that the US State Department is funding mosques all around the globe, including one in my native Bulgaria: To support the restoration of the Kurshum Mosque in Silistra. Although it is located in the center of town, damage has been caused by centuries of neglect and earthquakes. The mosque was built in the 17th century when Silistra was an important port city on the Danube River ruled by the Ottoman Empire. Research shows that it has nothing to do with Islam, but with ecotourism. According to a local report the restoration of the mosque and...

In the News Columns section of the Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman takes on the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over last month’s heavy-handed attempt to force Boeing to open a second Dreamliner Line in Washington State – rather than in South Carolina where they have already spent $1 billion building a plant, and plan to hire about 1000 non-union workers. You can read his piece here. It’s quite interesting: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-oped-0515-chapman-20110515,0,1660164.column Chapman covers all the points about why Boeing made that decision – which I think is completely rational and will...

Russian agent 'betrayed spy ring for money' A top Russian secret service agent suspected of blowing the cover of a sleeper spy ring in the United States was a heavy drinker who betrayed Moscow purely to make money, sources said on Wednesday. Alexander Poteyev, who will go on trial in absentia for treason in Moscow on May 16, is charged with having tipped off Washington about a ring of 10 Russian spies who were later deported in the biggest post-Cold War spy scandal. The Izvestia daily Wednesday published a slew of new information about Poteyev, saying he was linked to...

Sexy Russian spy Anna Chapman's boss was working for us. The head of Russia's spy operations in America defected just before he betrayed Chapman and her nine fellow sleeper agents last summer -- and the Kremlin has ordered a hit team to kill him as revenge, according to a bombshell report yesterday. Senior officials in Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's government said the double agent -- identified only as "Colonel Shcherbakov" -- was a devastating blow to Russia's SVR intelligence agency and touched off a probe.

Kremlin reportedly dispatches contract killer to US to pursue 'traitor' colonel, claims reputable Moscow newspaperA contract killer has been dispatched to assassinate the Russian double agent who betrayed Anna Chapman and nine other spies in the United States this spring, according to reports in Moscow. "We know who he is and where he is," a high-ranking Kremlin source told the reputable Kommersant newspaper. "You can have no doubt – a Mercader has already been sent after him." Ramón Mercader was the KGB-hired Spanish communist who was sent to kill Leon Trotsky with an icepick in Mexico in 1940.

Alleged spy Anya Chapman and dad Vasily Kushchenko worked for a high profile Russian PR firm. The 4 Vlast (the Forth power) is the owner of the Mrs. World-Russia brand. In fact Vasily Kushchenko is listed as contact person for the Mrs World-St. Petersburg edition of the pageant. The President of Mrs. America and Mrs. World pageant is an American: David Marmel. Here is what he said at a press-conference before the event in St Peterburg: I am Russian by origin; my father and mother were born in Russia. Although I grew up in America, I always felt like I...

The company Chetvertaya Vlast (4 Vlast – means: the Forth Power) was a publisher of the magazine Vacation in Russia. Anya Chapman is listed as contact in London at the web-site The Spy-Dad Vasily Kushchenko worked at the 4 Vlast tourist agency and on Mrs. World-Russia project. The 4 Vlast PR Company is close to the Russian Presidency. The boss Aleksandr Krestnikov (Ironically ‘Krestnikov’ translates in English as Godfather) writes occasionally for Rossiiskaya Gazeta the official government paper. In March 7, 2001 Krestnikov writes an article where he talks about the new Russian PR strategy for the world: "15...

... "The choice of timing was particularly refined," Lavrov said sarcastically, referring to the fact that the arrests occurred after Obama met with Medvedev on Thursday for a visit widely seen as the latest step in the "reset" of relations between the former Cold War rivals. A source in Obama's administration said the president was not happy about the timing of the arrests, but investigators feared that some of their suspects might flee, The New York Times reported. The arrests might have been spurred by an FBI sting operation on Saturday in which one of the, Anna Chapman, was given...

<p>WASHINGTON — Ten Russian intelligence officers have been arrested for allegedly serving as illegal agents of the Russian government in the United States, the Justice Department announced Monday.</p>

he date of May 21st, 2008, was the worst day of Steven Curtis Chapman's life, for it was then that Chapman's five-year-old daughter, Maria Sue Chapman, was killed in an accident. It occurred ten days after Maria's birthday when Maria was accidentally hit by her older brother Will while he was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser pulling into the driveway of their home in Franklin, Tennessee. Maria, the youngest in the family, was one of three daughters whom Steven and his wife Mary Beth had adopted from China, and she was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. Maria died...