Free Republic

The great writer Harlan Ellison turns 80 today. Ellison has won eight Hugo Awards, a shared award for the screenplay of A Boy and his Dog that he counts as "half an Hugo" and two special awards from annual World SF Conventions; four Nebula Awards of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA); five Bram Stoker Awards of the Horror Writers Association (HWA); two Edgar Awards of the Mystery Writers of America; two World Fantasy Award from annual conventions; and two Georges Méliès fantasy film awards. -- Wikipedia Ellison is known primarily to television viewers as the author...

On Wednesday night April 30, 2014 voters of the town of Northborough sent a very clear message to town officials by voting no or Article 58. The vast majority of voters who had sat through three nights of Annual Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly against over riding a recent MA Superior Court decision, which deemed the range use not only legal, but also perfectly safe for the surrounding neighbors. The genesis of this Article and this story goes back twenty years, to 1994 when David Brown and his wife Carmel carefully selected and purchased a tract of land to build their...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is proposing a far-reaching ordinance that would keep gun stores out of most parts of the city and require them to videotape every sale to deter customers from buying firearms for crooks. The ordinance is a response to a federal judge’s ruling in January that Chicago’s longtime ban on gun stores was unconstitutional. Emanuel chose not to fight the decision, and the court gave the city six months to approve store restrictions short of a ban. The deadline is July 14. Under the proposed ordinance, special-use zoning would keep gun stores out of 99.5 percent of Chicago,...

Now that it has passed the New Jersey Assembly, a new law intended to restrict the rights of gun owners heads to the desk of Governor Chris Christie. It’s being billed as legislation to “restrict magazine size” in the Garden State. The New Jersey state Assembly on Thursday sent Governor Chris Christie a gun control bill that would limit the capacity of gun ammunition magazines, but it was unclear whether the Republican governor would sign the measure into law… The bill, approved in the Assembly by a 44-34 vote, would cut the maximum capacity of gun magazines to 10 from...

North Carolina restaurant The Pit was robbed at gunpoint on Sunday. Normally, local crime stories like this wouldn't merit a Townhall post, but this one is different: The Pit has a "no weapons" sign displayed prominently on its door declaring the restaurant a gun-free zone, and bans patrons from carrying concealed weapons. Authorities said just before 9 p.m. Sunday, three men wearing hoodies entered the restaurant through the back doors with pistols, and forced several staff members to lie on the floor. The bandits assaulted two employees during the crime, but they were not seriously injured. What groups like Everytown...

Massa's wife, Sally Jenkins, tells the Boston Herald her husband realized he wouldn't be allowed in when he saw the security area and was arrested while leaving. She was at the commencement to see her sister graduate. The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office says the 28-year-old Massa has a license to carry firearms for hunting and target practice. He faces a civil penalty for violating the terms of that license

I’ve explained on several occasions (here, here, and here) that we can be optimistic about the fight to preserve our rights to keep and bear arms. Simply stated, politicians are increasingly scared to go after gun owners and we keep seeing more and more evidence that Second Amendment freedoms make society safer. And courts are beginning to do a better job of upholding the Constitution. A recent example comes from Arizona, where the government was trying to simultaneously undermine both the First Amendment and Second Amendment. The latest example comes from Arizona, where a pro-gun group won a legal fight...

A federal judge on Thursday upheld the District’s tough gun registration laws, finding that new regulations crafted by city officials in response to a Supreme Court decision “pass constitutional scrutiny.” “The people of this city, acting through their elected representatives, have sought to combat gun violence and promote public safety. The court finds that they have done so in a constitutionally permissible manner,” U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote in an opinion likely to be appealed by gun-rights advocates.

Milwaukee police who forced their way into a gun rights advocate's home without a warrant, took her for an emergency mental evaluation and seized her gun were justified under the circumstances and protected from her civil rights claims, a federal appeals court has ruled. "The intrusions upon Sutterfield's privacy were profound," Judge Ilana Rovner wrote for three-judge panel. "At the core of the privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment is the right to be let alone in one's home." But the court also found, that on the other hand, "There is no suggestion that (police) acted for any reason other...

On May 7th, an apoplectic CNN attempted to provide cover for Hillary Clinton after her unprovoked assault on 100 million American gun owners. Speaking before the National Council for Behavioral Health, Hillary stated that the nation’s “gun culture” had gotten “way out of balance.” “We’ve got to rein in what has become an almost article of faith that anybody can have a gun anywhere, anytime” added Clinton. “I don’t believe that is in the best interest of the vast majority of people.” “She’s talking in the context of mental health,” claimed CNN talking head John King in the hope of...

Throwing a heavy net of restrictions over gun users was always going to entangle law abiding Coloradans’ Constitutional rights. But Sara Warren couldn’t have guessed how it would trip up her ability to make a living. No one foresaw her plight because no one thought through the battery of gun controls conceived in Washington DC and New York City and imposed on the Rocky Mountains.The President insisted; Joe Biden insisted; Michael Bloomberg insisted; and governing Democrats saluted: If we can grab guns here in western, purple Colorado, we can do it anywhere. The state’s malpractice was hasty, deliberate, and cowardly....

Jack in the Box, a popular fast-food restaurant chain, has followed Starbucks' unfortunate lead in limiting its customers' Second Amendment rights. Friday, the company announced it would start enforcing its no-firearms-in-stores policy. Jack in the Box’s Vice President of Corporate Communications Brian Luscomb released this statement: “The presence of guns inside a restaurant could create an uncomfortable situation for our guests and employees and lead to unintended consequences.” The company's decision comes a day after gun control group Moms Demand Action launched a petition to pressure the restaurant to enforce the policy. They started the campaign in response to...

A little noticed and virtually unreported April 15 notice posted in the Federal Register suggests the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives intends expanding the multiple rifle sale requirement currently imposed on four border states (Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas) to all states. Titled “Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection eComments Requested; Report of Multiple Sale or Other Disposition of Certain Rifles,” and assigned OMB Number 1140–0100, the 60-day notice abstract declares “The purpose of this information collection is to require Federal Firearms Licensees to report multiple sales or other dispositions whenever the licensee sells or otherwise disposes...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Straphangers are on alert after police said a suspect attacked a man with a hammer at a Brooklyn subway station. And as CBS 2’s John Slattery reported exclusively, police believe the attacker has done it at least twice before – on one occasion at the very same subway station. A pregnant woman was among the other victims

History, politics and law are all tangled up in contemporary court interpretations and public understanding of the Second Amendment, and politics is the greater part of the mix these days. Last week, I wrote that we’ve so misread the amendment that maybe we ought to get rid of it. That’s certainly not on the horizon, but the idea drew a strong response and suggested to me that a review of the amendment’s history might be helpful. (Some of the responses also reinforced my belief there are many people who should not be allowed anywhere near a gun. What does racist...

On May 6th, Hillary Clinton gave a speech at a National Council for Behavioral Health conference in which she suggested that "fully licensed" and "fully validated" gun owners cannot be trusted to make sound decisions regarding gun usage. According to Politico, Clinton's said: At the rate we're going, we're going to have so many people with guns everywhere, fully licensed, fully validated, in settings where [one] could be in a movie theater, and they don't like someone chewing gum loudly or talking on their cell phone and decide they have the perfect right to defend themselves against the gun chewer...

Denninger: “If You Take Out Black-on-Black Homicide… Three Quarters of All Gun Murders Disappear” Karl Denninger May 7th, 2014 The Market Ticker Editor’s Note: If you’ve ever spent some time reading Karl Denninger’s Market Ticker you’ve come to realize that he is a straight-shooter of the highest order. Whether commenting on geo-politics, the economy, corruption or the persistent destruction of our liberties, Denninger doesn’t mince words. His arguments are not only logical in a world plagued by irrationality, but backed up with solid data. In the following article Denninger details the lies, half-truths and coverups surrounding America’s gun debate and...

Paris Ainsworth says if not for her concealed weapons permit, she'd be dead.DETROIT - Her siblings now jokingly call her Rambo. However, Paris Ainsworth easily could have been killed. Her attackers shot her four times, but she had eight bullets for them. "If I wouldn't have had my gun I would be dead today," she said. It was late Saturday night when she arrived home after working a double shift. She saw two men moving closer to her as she was about to get out of her car. Before she got out, she put her .45 caliber handgun in her...

There is nothing so dependably disingenuous as a liberal who proclaims a willingness to have an honest debate or engage in a legitimate compromise. For decades spent in the practice of calculated deceit have made truth a foreign concept to these unprincipled vermin. And no subject has been the cause of more outright dishonesty from the left than the right to keep and bear arms. For decades, liberals have begun each new call for “common sense” gun legislation by reassuring gun owning, 2nd Amendment supporting Americans that nobody wants to take their guns. “No one is seriously proposing to ban...

During Michael Bloomberg’s three terms as mayor of New York, he loved nothing more than to lord over the nation’s largest city. Now he’s just a normal civilian multibillionaire, sitting right below the prime minister of India on the Forbes list of the world’s most powerful people — a lowly position that is no doubt a source of immense personal disappointment. Short of patrolling New York’s parks in a spandex bodysuit to inflict vigilante justice on cigarette smokers and super-sized Slurpee drinkers, what’s a rich ex-mayor to do? Luckily for Bloomberg, in American politics, controlling sublime amounts of capital is...