Free Republic

Letter to the editor Today's Courant says that there could be as many as 330,000 people with assault weapons who refused to register them according to the law [Feb. 11, Page 1, "Thousands Ignore Law On Gun Registration"]. Then now is the time to increase the penalty and start rounding them up. At the first sign that someone has an illegal weapon , they should be immediately tried and imprisoned. These are the people we must be worried and concerned about -- the ones who need to keep their ownership secret. Something wrong when they refuse to obey the law...

Here's the link.

"...licensed carrying of firearms for self-defense have become the American norm."

Author's Note: The fight for student’s rights continues. The series is stretching out longer than anticipated but you will want to keep reading. There's some good news at the end of the road. Dear Chancellor Miller (chancellor@uncw.edu); After laying the groundwork in my previous correspondence, I finally have an opportunity to respond to the sweeping claim that UNCW's student affairs division treats student groups equally, regardless of their political viewpoint. I will also respond to the Dean's claim that there are hundreds of student groups on campus that have been approved without any difficulties whatsoever. That claim suggests that those...

An Open Letter to the Men and Women of the Connecticut State Police: You are NOT the enemy (UNLESS YOU CHOOSE TO BE.) The following letter was sent via email to members of the Connecticut State Police, Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. There are 1,212 email addresses on the list. There were 62 bounce-backs. 15 February 2014 To the men and women of the Connecticut State Police and the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection: My name is Mike Vanderboegh. Few of you will know who I am, or even will have heard of the Three Percent...

What's your line in the sand? When do you finally say, "Enough," decide to sell your house, pack up your things and move your life to another state that offers more freedom and liberty? For me and my family, the straw that broke the camel's back was the ludicrous and oppressive gun legislation enacted last year in Connecticut by progressive Democrats and weak-kneed, unprincipled Republicans. We are gun owners. We had been members of Connecticut Citizen's Defense League and many other Second Amendment and liberty organizations. There was no way we were going to submit to registration of anything that...

Via Gabe Malor, who’s already found the tastiest chestnuts in the opinion. The novelty here isn’t the ruling itself but the court issuing it. It’s the Ninth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over the west coast and typically leans left thanks to liberal all-stars like Stephen Reinhardt. (He wasn’t part of the panel that heard this one, thankfully.) With today’s ruling, the Ninth joins the Seventh in holding that the Second Amendment, just as it says, includes a right to “bear” arms. States can regulate that right but they can’t ban it altogether. Three other federal appellate courts have ruled the...

Crime once again is on the rise in America. According to recent figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, crimes against property are up a staggering 12 percent from last year; violent crime even more -- 15 percent. Citizens in many of our country’s largest metropolitan areas increasingly are becoming victims of gun-toting criminals, even as liberal mayors, governors, and state legislators continue their efforts to undermine the Second Amendment rights of those very citizens. One might think that the end of America’s two-decade long decline in crime might serve to justify the need to strengthen – not weaken –...

BEAUMONT - Beaumont police were called to Eastex Freeway near Highway 105 Saturday morning by people complaining about a man dressed as a banana holding an AK-47. Derek Poe, owner of Golden Triangle Tactical, told 12News Saturday that it was part of the store's grand opening after moving locations from Parkdale Mall. Poe said the man in the banana suit was holding an AK-47 across his back with the barrel pointing down and holding a sign with an arrow pointing toward the store. He said this idea was to attract customers to the store. A Beaumont police spokesperson said officers...

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...

<p>I concur in judgment only on the basis that I would conclude that the individual right to bear arms contained in the Second Amendment extends to motor vehicles….</p>

While the beatdown on Jesse Myerson’s communist advocacy will continue — compelled by the impersonal forces of history — we can take a brief detour to examine what he wrote after Jared Loughner’s deadly January 2011 shooting spree in Tucson, Arizona. Beyond Blood Libel: A Refudiation of Sarah Palin’s Lone Gunman TheoryYou can read the whole thing, if you have a masochistic appetite for bad writing, but here’s a sample paragraph: "But even if it cannot be demonstrated that Loughner’s act grew out of the right-wing violence-glorifying culture, there remain critical pieces of context for understanding how culpability for violence...

Storyleak: A man who fled Cuba’s communist regime in the 1960s blasted Oregon lawmakers Thursday during a public hearing on proposed gun control legislation. Manuel Martinez, who narrowly escaped Cuba in 1962 after being imprisoned for opposing Fidel Castro, passionately defended the Second Amendment in front of Oregon’s Senate Judiciary Committee, comparing the state’s attempts to pass gun control to moves made by his former government. “Don’t sell me this. A very powerful man tried to sell me this 50-something years ago, I didn’t buy it,” Martinez said. “This is Marxism, plain and clear.”

At a public hearing on proposed gun control legislation, Manuel Martinez, a man who escaped Cuba in 1962 after opposing Fidel Castro and being imprisoned for it, blasts Oregon gun control lawmakers in an impassioned speech that only someone that has lived through communism and Marxism, only someone that watched innocent men, women and children murdered by their own government, only someone that fought against his whole country being enslaved by a dictator, can give. “They come here in those dog and pony show and cry that their going to protect people. You’re going to protect nobody! I want to...

Most gun owners use their guns legally and responsibly, and the President strongly believes in an individual right to bear arms, but we need to take action to better protect our children and communities from tragic mass shootings like the one in Newtown, Connecticut.

Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina has said that she will sign the gun law reform, Bill 308.  The law has been widely touted as a "restaurant carry" bill that removes the state restrictions on people with concealed carry permits carrying their defensive firearms into establishments that serve alcohol.    Second amendment supporters have argued that they should be able to eat at the same restaurants as other citizens, without discrimination by the government.  The new law will prohibit legally armed citizens from consuming alcohol while in these establishments.  Restaurants owners will be able to discriminate if they chose...

Andrew Cuomo's gun control legislation has backfired. Responsible gun owners in New York state criticized the liberal governor's SAFE Act from the start for its unfair restrictions that included upgrading misdemeanors in firearm possessions to felonies and banning AR-15 semi-automatic rifles. The strict legislation led to a staggering 1,200 felonies in the state. Now, however, other numbers suggest New Yorkers aren’t sitting quietly. Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, reported on his organization’s increased popularity: The NRA affiliate saw its membership rise from 22,000 statewide to 41,000 since the SAFE Act was approved in...

Attorney General Eric Holder said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today that President Obama is open to using an executive action to push through gun-control and/or associated mental health measures that haven’t found approval in Congress. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), one of the top proponents of new gun-control measures in Congress, noted that Obama only made a “very brief” reference to gun violence in his State of the Union address. “But I hope, and I hope you will join me in the view that the president remains completely committed to ending gun violence in this country, adopting common sense...

<p>A federal judge on Thursday upheld Connecticut's tough gun control law that was passed in the wake of the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.</p> <p>The stringent law is constitutional, said the ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Alfred Covello, denying a legal challenge by a group of gun owners.</p>

HARTFORD — Gun control advocates were buoyed Thursday by a federal court decision in Hartford that upholds Connecticut's toughest-in-the-nation assault weapons ban, calling it a constitutionally valid means of balancing gun rights and the government's interest in reducing gun violence."The court concludes that the legislation is constitutional," senior U.S. District Judge Alfred V. Covello wrote in a decision published late Thursday. "While the act burdens the plaintiffs' Second Amendment rights, it is substantially related to the important governmental interest of public safety and crime control."The legislature enacted comprehensive restrictions on ownership of semiautomatic weapons and ammunition early last year in...