Free Republic

On Thursday evening, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer asked Congress to end the "intentional and unconscionable" humanitarian crisis at the border that the Obama administration has created and ignored. In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Brewer mentioned that illegal immigrants are actually flagging down border patrol agents so they can enter the United States, where the Obama administration has led them to believe they will receive amnesty. She said it was also their responsibility to do something about the crisis at the border. "As congressional leaders, you have the ability to...

NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) - The FBI is investigating an explosion at a power plant in southern Arizona caused by a makeshift bomb. Nogales police say the explosion Wednesday morning at the UniSource Energy Services Valencia Plant ruptured a diesel storage tank and caused a small spill, but the fuel didn’t ignite. Authorities say there were no reported injuries and they’re still looking for suspects and any witnesses to the explosion which occurred around 9:30 a.m.

An illegal immigrant who killed a police office while driving the wrong way in on an Arizona freeway Monday had a blood-alcohol level almost three times the legal limit, the Associated Press reported Friday. Raul Silva Corona had driven 35 miles in the wrong direction on three freeways with a blood alcohol level of .238 percent in the wee hours of Monday morning before he killed Mesa Police Officer Brandon Mendoza, according to the AP's report. In Arizona, a driver is considered intoxicated with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent. Mendoza, who served for thirteen years at the Mesa Police...

by Brian Hayes | Top Right News Last month, we reported on an incursion by Mexican troops in Arizona, who held U.S. agents at gunpoint before being allowed to retreat back into Mexico. Many experts believe that elements of the Mexican army are openly assisting the drug cartels along their smuggling routes into the U.S. Now comes a new shocking report of dozens of invasions across the border by Mexican troops, who have shot Americans and even landed helicopters on ranchers' land and held them at gunpoint. WATCH:

Use of Silencers is encouraged in Europe Photo Courtesy Gun World As part of the antiquated and constitutionally questionable National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA), heads of local law enforcement were required to sign off on the acquisition of tax stamps required to own gun mufflers, short barreled rifles or shotguns, and fully automatic firearms, that were transferred across state lines. With the Supreme Court firmly in "progressive" hands, the law quickly morphed into a federal requirement that a $200 tax stamp had to be paid, along with requirements for fingerprints and registration for any of the restricted items,...

I thought Governor Brewer would sign SB 1366.   It seemed a non controversial reform that deconflicted two definitions of what is a firearm under Arizona law, making it clear that air guns are not firearms. Here is the story from an AZCDL alert:  Don’t be caught with an air rifle! There are conflicting definitions of a firearm in Arizona statutes. One, ARS 13-105, uses the “action of an expanding gas” to define a firearm. This definition includes air-operated rifles and pistols. Meanwhile, ARS 13-3101 uses the “action of an explosive” to define a firearm. What makes the conflicting definitions...

Governor Brewer has been considered a friend of second amendment supporters.   When she was under threat of reelection, she signed constitutional carry into law.  Under her watch, Arizona has taken the lead as the most advanced state in the union when scored on restoring second amendment rights. Other states are striving to catch up.  Kansas passed a bill to make sure that public buildings would only ban people carrying guns if they effectively did so for legally armed citizens and criminals alike.  Indiana passed a law ending their "roaming school zones", where legally armed citizens could be turned into...

On 22 April, the Arizona legislature passed SB 1366, a reform of the definition of what is a firearm in Arizona law.  The legislation now goes to Governor Brewer, who has 5 working days to veto it, sign it, or allow it to become law.  The fate of the bill was uncertain until the last minute.   The bills supporters were able to use parliamentary maneuvering to bring the bill up for a vote, where it passed easily. Arizona has long suffered under two potentially contradictory definitions of what is a firearm under the law.   I taught these two definitions...

Governor Jan Brewer vetoed gun law reforms that would have held local governments accountable.   HB 2517 would have put teeth into the state's preemption law, with penalties for government officials that prosecuted people  for violating illegitimate local ordinances.   Florida passed a similar bill in 2011 after scofflaw governments routinely persecuted citizens who exercised their second amendment rights.  Pennsylvania and Ohio are considering similar measures. HB 2339 would have ensured that local governments who wished to prevent people from carrying weapons in public buildings would have to do more than depend on those who would obey signs directing them to...

  In Arizona, a few women and children lobbied Governor Brewer to veto legislation designed to help keep people safe in the state.   John Lott, one of the foremost researchers on the effects of legislation restricting access to defense options, has noted that the vast majority of public mass shootings occur in gun free zones.  From a nationalreview.com interview: Lott offers a final damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has...

Last year, a landowner in rural Yavapai County, Arizona, was finally vindicated in a hearing after a prolonged legal battle with local zoning officials.  The case involved local officials who claimed that they had the power to shut down shooting on private land, because shooting was not an "approved use" in the zoning code.  The closest complaining neighbor was  miles distant from the property.  A common practice in "model" zoning codes is to invert the ordinary structure of American law, claiming that everything that is not allowed is prohibited, instead of the long recognized construct of everything that is...

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed HB 2103 yesterday, the 17th of April, 2014.  The bill reforms concealed carry permit qualifications in the state, allowing people with military service to obtain a permit at 19 years of age.  From trendtrack.com: E. The department of public safety shall issue a permit to an applicant who meets all of the following conditions: 1. Is a resident of this state or a United States citizen. 2.  Is twenty‑one years of age or older or is at least nineteen years of age and provides evidence of current military service or proof of honorable discharge or...

A story in the Arizona Daily Star about an anti-second amendment group included a poll on whether gun laws needed to be stronger, changed a little, kept the same, or reduced.  From the Star: Do you think we need more laws placing restrictions on guns? Yes. We need much stronger laws. Yes, but only a few common-sense changes. No. The laws are OK the way they are. No. We have too many laws, and most of them should be eliminated. What is interesting about this poll is the last choice.   It is almost never given on these old...

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Ruth Alvarez says breast cancer has been her personal prison; she is now facing the disease behind bars. Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies arrested Alvarez-- an undocumented immigrant-- in early April for working with a false identification. She says her arrest comes just a few weeks away from her planned mastectomy scheduled for April 23rd. Alvarez is asking to be release so she can undergo the surgery with her family by her side. "To go through breast cancer is already hard, it's so hard to go through treatments seeing how your whole body, your whole life kinda change,"...

Are there places that should be off-limits to law enforcement? It's a question that some are raising in the wake of a recent incident in Pima county. The incident happened on March 23, in the community of Ajo, about 130 miles southwest of Tucson. The News 4 Tucson Investigators received a number of emails from people concerned that Sheriff's deputies and the Border Patrol stepped over a sacred line. According to a Pima County Sheriff's Department incident report obtained by the News 4 Tucson Investigators, a deputy passing by the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church spotted three Hispanic males on the...

After being deported to Mexico from his home in Arizona earlier this year, Jaime Valdez joins us to detail his attempt today to re-enter the United States. Valdez says he was deported in retaliation for a hunger strike that his family took part in at the Phoenix offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to protest U.S. immigration policies. "All my family is in the U.S., so that’s why I’m trying to come back," Valdez says. "We’re going to try to get this message to the president, to stop the deportations and to stop the discrimination and injustice in detention centers."...

Two men who were recently deported will attempt to come back to the United States next week to reunite with their loved ones in Arizona. On Tuesday, Jaime Arturo Valdez-Reyes and Ardani Rosales-Lemus, a father of two U.S.-born children, will present themselves at the port of entry in Nogales, Ariz. They will request that their cases be re-opened and that they be granted humanitarian parole.At a press conference held Thursday outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Phoenix, supporters said both men were deported for organizing within the detention center to stop their deportations. Meanwhile, ICE officials told...

When Arizona passed legislation early last year to stop the irrational destruction of valuable property that had come into the hands of local governments, the state required that firearms turned in to government agencies be sold through normal commercial channels, thus insuring that the guns were taken "off the street". Some local governments had been involved in what amounted to a modern Deodand ritual, where inanimate objects were "punished" by destruction as a way to sacrifice to the gods of political correctness.    Even in medieval times, most deodand objects were sold, with the money going to the Church or...

APACHE JUNCTION, AZ - Authorities say a homeowner in Apache Junction shot a suspect who was trying to kick in his door Monday night. According to Tim Gaffney with the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, the incident occurred around 8:20 p.m. near McKellips Boulevard and Ironwood Drive. The 59-year-old homeowner heard the men at his back door and looked at the family's security camera, Gaffney said. He then saw the men wearing hoods and holding guns. When they started kicking at the door, the homeowner fired a round through the back door, Gaffney said in a news release. Another person in...

MEXICO CITY - Mention Arizona and many Mexicans grimace. It's still widely viewed here as the most anti-Mexico state in the U.S., even if the tough anti-migrant law behind that perception has been largely voided. But Arizona's leaders are logging lots of miles to put a new face on their home state.