Free Republic

I found two good posters on Facebook today:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday introduced a bill that would require background checks to be run on anyone buying explosive powder, a reaction to last week's Boston Marathon bombing. Reid introduced the bill, S. 792, for Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who has been out sick for much of the year. But in a press statement, Lautenberg said the Boston bombing shows that background checks are needed for explosive materials. "It defies common sense that anyone, even a terrorist, can walk into a store in America and buy explosive powders without a background check or any questions asked,"...

The Senate delivered a devastating blow to President Obama’s agenda to regulate guns Wednesday by defeating a bipartisan proposal to expand background checks. It failed by a vote of 54 to 46, with 5 Democrats voting against it. Only 4 Republicans supported it. Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) voted against it. Reid supported the measure but voted against it to preserve his ability to bring the measure up again. GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Susan Collins (Maine), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Mark Kirk

Senator Joe Manchin was on FOX News today to discuss his proposed gun control legislation. He admitted his bill will not prevent another Newtown massacre, “This is not a universal background check. This is a criminal and mental background check at gun shows and internet sales. It does not infringe on your right as a family… It protects the rights of our veterans… They (families of Newtown shooting victims) even recognized that this legislation we’re working on, which is the background checks on criminal and mental illness would not have saved their little babies."

Are gun rights activists getting all worked up over nothing, now that the U.S. Senate has voted to open debate on new gun control legislation that focuses on expanded background checks? Pacific Northwest gun owners are engaged in furious discussions at Northwest Firearms and Seattle Guns, along with the national debates on Gun Rights Media and The High Road (here and here) forums. But is all of this for naught? Should these gun activists be burning up their emotions over a vote just to open debate? How many people have actually read the compromise bill unveiled by Senators Joe Manchin...

The Honorable* (Your Senator) (Address) "I was disappointed to see that 68 Senators did not support the Paul-Cruz-Lee filibuster. Now that the Senate has moved to proceed to S. 649, several gun control issues will be coming up - including the universal registry bill, the Feinstein gun ban, and the magazine ban. As for the Toomey-Manchin-Schumer universal registry bill, don't believe the press' efforts to sugar-coat it. If you have ever had an "Internet ... posting" on (or related to) your gun, you can sell it only by going to a dealer and filling out a 4473 and getting the...

6 Senate Republicans voted with the Democrats to break a proposed filibuster and allow a full vote on Universal Background Checks, 2013 Assault Weapons Ban and the Magazine Ban (S.649). Here are the names of the Republicans Senators that betrayed us: Kelly Ayotte (NH) Richard Burr (NC) Saxby Chambliss (GA) Tom Coburn (OK) Susan Collins (ME) Bob Corker (TN) Jeff Flake (AZ) Lindsey Graham (SC) Dean Heller (NV) John Hoeven (ND) Johnny Isakson (GA) Mark Kirk (IL) John McCain (AZ) Pat Toomey (PA) Roger Wicker (MS) Lamar Alexander (TN)

Full title - "There’s Always One: Will Pat Toomey Help Democrats Save Gun Control? Why All Modern Politics Is National." Somewhere, Arlen Specter is smiling. Two influential senators, one from each party, are working on an agreement that could expand background checks on firearms sales to include gun shows and online transactions, Senate aides said Sunday. If completed, the effort could represent a major breakthrough in the effort by President Barack Obama and his allies to restrict guns following last December's massacre of schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., could nail down an accord...

An Indian villager has axed to death four women and five young girls while apparently mentally disturbed after his wife left him, police say. Pandu Nagesia, 35, killed nine of his neighbours during his rampage through Behratoli village in the central state of Chhattisgarh on Thursday, district police chief Govardhan Singh Darroh said by telephone. The victims were five girls aged between two and nine, a 25-year-old and three women over 60, he said. 'A total of nine females were axed to death,' Darroh said. 'The accused Nagesia first attacked a 25-year-old woman and her two-year-old child and axed them...

FREEPER HELP PLEASE: Asking our FR legal-beagles.... ...attorneys, investigators, claims adjusters... (stand-up comics, kibbitzers, and crackpots also welcome to chime in...) I am researching a person who has demanded an extroardinary insurance settlement-- ...for a very minor collision several years ago. Spidey-sense says possible fraud in the works; perhaps an experienced scammer. SOoo... ... homework required on personal/criminal/prior claims background??!!? What is the BEST background check research engine? (1) Most thorough? (2) Most reliable? (3) Secure inquiry & transaction? (4) Bang for the buck?

The Hill is reporting that John McCain (R-AZ), who has affixed his name to such legislation or proposed legislation as McCain-Feingold (CFR), McCain-Kennedy (immigration) and McCain-Lieberman (climate change), is a key player in the quest to expand background check for gun purchasers. Also "considering" signing on are Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Senator Dean Heller (R-NV). The proposal contains some "compromises" such as letting "rural gun owners conduct background checks from their home computers. Another would give military veterans who have been declared mentally unfit to own a gun a process for appealing that finding." McCain has a B+ rating...

Paymar has enough votes to get the diminished gun control bill out of his committee. One of two Democrats who were opposed to his original bill -- Rep. Debra Hilstrom of Brooklyn Center -- said she will support the new proposal. Also stripped from Paymar's bill is a provision that would have restored some discretion to law enforcement in approving gun purchase permits. The NRA and gun rights advocates vowed to fight the newest version as well, saying it still doesn't accomplish the end goal of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. They also argued Paymar's delaying tactics...

The main provision of the bill is that any transfer of a firearm, no matter how fleeting, needs to go through an FFL and the transferee needs to have a background check performed through the NICS system. There are some exceptions, but they aren’t very good ones. As one of the provisions designed to “alleviate the fears” of the gun-owning public, it looks like there’s a provision in here that permanently sets the price of all FFL transfer fees to the same amount. That number will be set by the Attorney General, which these days is still Eric Holder. The...

I pulled up S.374 - Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013 on Thomas, and I came up with a two-page shell of a bill that means nothing. To ensure that all individuals who should be prohibited from buying a firearm are listed in the national instant criminal background check system and require a background check for every firearm sale.Well, gosh! Who could have a problem with that, right? I mean, didn’t the panel of gun banners last night at the town hall tell us that these are just common-sense measures to prevent people who shouldn’t have guns from having...

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Supporters of a proposal to expand background checks to private gun sales struggled Monday to secure a final batch of votes that would ensure the bill's passage.

You know, the emerging conservative leader in the US Senate- same one the GOP old-guard spent million$ trying to defeat... that one: Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 - May 2008, Cruz was the first Hispanic Solicitor General in Texas, the youngest Solicitor General in the entire country, and had the longest tenure in Texas history.  Partner at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he led the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice.  Cruz has authored 80+ SCOTUS briefs and presented 40+ oral arguments before The Court Cruz served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William...

Citizen disarmament advocate Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) has shown that the cry for universal background checks has always been a subterfuge to move toward universal firearms registration. Senator Coburn (R-OK) has offered a compromise allowing for background checks as long as no records are kept. Such systems are easily implemented and controlled through sting operations. The advantage of such a system is that can not easily be used to construct a universal registration database. Gun registration has historically been the precursor of gun confiscations, either slowly and individually, over time, or in groups during a crises. It appears that the potential...

WASHINGTON—Despite signs of stepped-up White House involvement, a bipartisan compromise over expanded background checks for gun buyers remained elusive Tuesday as a Senate committee prepared for votes this week on curbing firearms. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has been the lead Republican negotiating with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats over a compromise background-check measure. They've been stuck over Democrats' insistence that records be kept on sales between private individuals. Coburn spoke at the White House last week with Vice President Joe Biden on guns and other issues, and received a phone call Monday from President Barack Obama in which...

Should it be a federal crime for businesses to refuse to hire ex-convicts? Yes, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which recently released 20,000 convoluted words of regulatory "guidance" to direct businesses to hire more felons and other ex-offenders. In the late 1970s, the EEOC began stretching Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to sue businesses for practically any hiring practice that adversely affected minorities. In 1989, the agency sued Carolina Freight Carrier Corp. of Hollywood, Fla., for refusing to hire as a truck driver a Hispanic man who had multiple arrests and had served 18 months...

Lost amidst the clamor for universal back ground checks are a lot of important details. One of those details, besides the issues of who will pay for universal background checks, and how will such checks be precluded from turning into a registration scheme, is the fact that simply making firearm background checks “universal” would have to effect of denying the right of 18-20 year olds to own a handgun, even in their home. In 2008 the US Supreme Court held in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment “guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in...