Free Republic

At the 145th National Rifle Association annual meetings and exhibits, you could see and purchase replica flintlock muskets like the kind Daniel Boone used, “wardrobe” handguns the size of a cellphone, a carriage-mounted 1883 Gatling gun, historic firearms from the Renaissance down through the latest Surge, bullet-splat jewelry, deep-concealment holsters, triple barrel shotguns, and camo everything – coolers, flasks, four-wheelers, deer blinds, infant-wear and sexy-time lingerie. Mingling with a crowd striking for its nearly uniform whiteness, I did lapse into a kind of fugue state from time to time, a retail trance brought on by sheer sensory overload, but with...

Missouri Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kehoe (R-Dist. 6) says he and his GOP colleagues are ready to override Governor Jay Nixon’s (D) veto of permitless carry legislation. Nixon vetoed the legislation, SB 656, on June 27, just over two weeks after defenseless Orlando, Florida, residents demonstrated the dangers unarmed citizens face when targeted by a determined armed attacker. According to The Kansas City Star, House Speaker Todd Richardson (R-Dist. 152) said the House will override the veto if an override attempt prevails in the Senate.

My parents never despised guns before coming to America, except when they were in the hands of bad people. When they came here 30 years ago, they were intrigued by the American way of life and boundless freedom here. They knew Americans owned firearms (especially the likes of actor John Wayne) and proudly touted the Second Amendment. Compared to the U.S., Soviet-occupied Lithuania was gun-free except for those in elite governmental positions. My dad always said the Soviets succeeded in oppressing Lithuanians and others by first disarming them. I always knew he was right, but aimed to confirm his assertions....

Congressional Democrats increasingly frustrated by a string of defeats on gun issues in Washington are scrambling to harness a public outpouring after last week’s sit-in protest on the House floor. Party leaders are urging members to conduct similar sit-ins around the country as they try to sustain the flash of hard-core activism on the gun issue. “We don’t have the numbers to get things done, so we have to turn to more dramatic displays to galvanize the public so they can help us pressure the Republicans to do what’s right,” said U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.

On Monday, in the case of Voisine v. the United States, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision that prohibits people convicted of domestic violence from purchasing guns in a 6-2 vote, according to SCOTUSBlog. This was the case of two Maine men who were convicted on state domestic violence charges and then found with firearms and charged with violating a federal law that prohibits domestic abusers from having firearms," reads the live blog. "The question was whether their convictions qualified under the statute."

On average, Democrats (that’s my team (*) see footnote below) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime. On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and self-defense. If you don’t believe me, you can check the statistics on the Internet that don’t exist. At least I couldn’t find any that looked credible. But we do know that race and poverty are correlated. And we know that poverty and crime are correlated. And we know that race and political affiliation are correlated. Therefore, my team (Clinton) is more likely to use guns to shoot innocent people, whereas the...

Gun sales are on a pace to break last year's record of more than 23 million, a boon to the U.S. industry and gun stores thanks to election-year worries about gun control and recent terror attacks, according to government figures and experts. Under Obama, background checks for guns reached 141.4 million through the end of May, amounting to sales of about 52,600 a day, according to the FBI. Last year, the FBI conducted more than 23 million background checks, which are generally used to figure sales of new and used weapons. Domestically, manufacturers have reported producing about 21,000 guns a...

CAIR opposes the Terrorist Firearms Prevention Act of 2016, “because it appears to limit the ban on firearms purchases to American Muslims.” From The Clarion Project: If left-wing politicians thought they were immune from ridiculous accusations of anti-Muslim bigotry by treating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) with kid gloves, they are in for a surprise. In declaring its opposition to the latest bi-partisan bill to prevent suspected terrorists from buying guns, the sordid group has accused the Democrats and Republicans of trying to suppress Muslims’ civil liberties.

“Did you see how dark it was? It’s likely that more people would have been killed.” This was Bill Clinton’s response to a suggestion that law abiding people with firearms of their own might have been able to save lives by stopping Islamic terrorist Omar Mateen at the Orlando nightclub Pulse. Of course, Bill was comfortably surrounded by armed security during his Bloomberg television interview, as was Barack during his speech in Orlando a few days later. But Obama offered an even more pointed dissent from those who believe the little people should be permitted the means of preserving their...

Make no mistake, the inexorable growth of government, always-more intrusive regulation and the ever-increasing horde of unaccountable bureaucrats has begun to result in blowback from the citizenry. For proof, you only need to look at the unlikely rise of a candidate like Donald Trump and the result of yesterday’s Brexit vote in the U.K. The latest example of government elites displaying a naked double standard — because remember, they know how you should live your life better than you do: the fact that the House hissy fit thrown by Dems unhappy with their inability to further restrict their constituents’ gun...

This report refers to Shannon Watts as one in a group of “regular people” who began advocating for stricter gun control measures in recent years. After the December 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., she created the “One Million Moms for Gun Control” Facebook page. It later became “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.” We should have noted that Watts has a background in corporate communications. From 1998 to mid-2012, she was a corporate communications executive or consultant at such companies as Monsanto and FleishmanHillard. Before that, Watts had what she says was a...

HOUSTON - It was a unique offer by the Shiloh Shooting Range in northwest Harris County, just days after the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. Shiloh offered free gun classes to the LGBT community and hundreds of people responded. "We learned gun safety,” said Jared Anthony. “We learned that it's not ... it's a big responsibility. If you do carry, it's something that you do need to take seriously. You are providing ... you're providing a service to the community really." More News Headlines Local shooting range offers free CHL course to LGBT community Uber offering free rides...

On Thursday morning’s CNN Newsroom, host Carol Costello brought on Erich Pratt, executive director for Gun Owners of America to argue with him about guns as the root cause of violence in the U.S. Unfortunately for Costello, her guest had facts ready to combat the journalist’s agenda and ably argued his point to where Costello had nothing left to defend her case. (transcript) Pratt then pointed out that other countries have far stricter gun laws but have much higher rates of murder, like in Japan where suicide rates are astronomical. “Actually, our murder rate is not even in the top...

Dr. Ben Carson’s brilliance is beyond debate. However, there is a definite reason why I would trust the famed neurosurgeon to operate on my child’s brain and not entrust him with the Oval Office. Now, the former presidential candidate has declared that it is time to “put on the table” a discussion on whether or not we actually need the Second Amendment.

A brave 13-year-old Ladson (SC) boy fended off two hardened felons who were attempting to break into his house by using his mother’s gun to protect himself while home alone. The boy saw the men breaking into the back of his home, “at which time he feared for his safety” and grabbed his mother’s gun, the document states. He began firing at them, and the Sheriff’s office reported that they returned fire. In a heated shootout, he shot Brown three times, and Bennett drove him to the hospital where he later died. The gray Chevy Sonic they were driving had...

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday reacted to the Democratic sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives over gun control by saying: “I don’t think this should be a very proud moment for democracy or the people who staged these stunts.” In his weekly press conference at the Capitol, Ryan said: “This is the people’s house. This is Congress, the House of Representatives, the oldest democracy in the world, and they’re descending it into chaos.”

In the wake of the horrific attack on an Orlando nightclub by a man espousing allegiance to ISIS, it didn’t take long for the Big Three networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) to advance the preferred political line of the Democrats, in this election year, to push for more gun control. Beginning on the evening following the shooting, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt on June 12, sounded the clarion call for gun control: “Today’s terror attack brings national security and the debate over gun control to forefront of the presidential campaigns once again.” And for the next week, an MRC study...

In the wake of the Orlando attack, gun sales are spiking across the country. Hunter’s Warehouse, a Pennsylvania-based online gun store, has sold 30,000 AR-15 rifles since the shooting. In Oklahoma, gun sales have spiked due to security concerns, with locals buying firearms to protect themselves and their families (via The Oklahoman):

But those who constantly appeal to that sentence in the Constitution as an obstacle to reasonable gun regulation are ignorant about the Founders’ own views about gun regulation. Any honest historian of the early Republic will tell you that lax gun laws are not in fact pro-Second Amendment; they are anti-Second Amendment. -snip Pennsylvania, in its 1776 Constitution, was the first state to include an express provision affirming the right to bear arms. It also passed a stringent loyalty oath that disarmed a large proportion of its population. Similar oaths were in force in most of the other states. When...

A father of one of the Orlando victims penned a letter expressing the wish that his son had been armed at the gay nightclub where 49 people were killed and another 53 were injured last week. In a letter published by The Detroit News, Mark Bando decried gun control policies for disarming people like his son, Christopher Andrew Leinonen, who was shot and killed by a terrorist last week at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. “The killer was armed and his helpless victims were not,” Bando wrote. “Yet the anti gun politicians still want to disarm the populace, enabling these...