Free Republic

Decrying estimates that “scores of thousands of Connecticut residents failed to register their military-style assault weapons with state police by Dec. 31,” The Hartford Courant published an editorial Friday declaring “State Can't Let Gun Scofflaws Off Hook. Aware that “willful noncompliance ... is doubtless a major issue,” The Courant floated the wishful thinking “that many gun owners are unaware of their obligation to register military-style assault weapons and would do so if given another chance.“But the bottom line is that the state must try to enforce the law,” The Courant concluded, calling on the state to use the “background check...

While maybe a half-million people will line Seattle’s streets today celebrating the Seahawks Super Bowl win, a “webinar” offered by the Progressive Majority Action Fund will provide tips to gun control proponents, including those in the Pacific Northwest, on how to push their anti-gun agenda. The 90-minute webinar – an online seminar – begins at noon Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern. It is being described as “a lively and interactive discussion about how to argue for gun legislation” led by Bernie Horn, “one of the lead lobbyists for the passage of the Brady Law and the federal ban on assault weapons.”The Progressive...

The government has accused its largest security background check contractor of defrauding the U.S. of millions of dollars by filing more than 660,000 flawed background investigations. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department made the claims in a 25-page civil complaint that joined a whistleblowers' lawsuit against US Investigations Services, LLC in U.S. District Court in Alabama. USIS was the firm that conducted background checks on NSA leaker Edward Snowden, as well as Aaron Alexis, a defense contractor who fatally shot 12 people before killing himself at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. this past September. Federal officials...

When Siskiyou County, CA Sheriff John Lopey tried to buy an M1 Garand rifle through the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP), he was denied and told he failed to pass the background check conducted via the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Lopey is a sheriff: he carries a gun and enforces the law for a living. Prior to being a sheriff, he spent 33 years with the California Highway Patrol and is a retired Army Colonel. He had Top Secret clearance in the Army. The FBI handles NICS background checks for firearms purchases. Ironically, Lopey recently went through and...

At least one state has gone to court to fight the Obama administration’s preposterous new regulation limiting employers’ rights to ban hiring felons because it discriminates against minorities. It’s been an ongoing battle between a number of companies and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination, for years. Under Obama the agency has dedicated extensive resources to go after businesses that check criminal background records to screen job applicants. In 2012 the EEOC officially adopted guidelines that limit employers’ ability to exclude felons from jobs. The agency has also sued companies for...

The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its screening of passengers before they arrive at the airport by searching a wide array of government and private databases that can include records like car registrations and employment information. While the agency says that the goal is to streamline the security procedures for millions of passengers who pose no risk, the new measures give the government greater authority to use travelers’ data for domestic airport screenings. Previously that level of scrutiny applied only to individuals entering the United States. The prescreening, some of which is already taking place, is described in documents the...

The same company that scrutinized former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden for a U.S. government security clearance said on Thursday it also checked the background of the Navy Yard shooter, allowing him to obtain a "secret" clearance. USIS, working as a contractor for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), conducted a background review of Aaron Alexis, identified by law enforcement authorities as the shooter who killed 12 people at the Navy Yard before he was shot dead. "Today we were informed that in 2007, USIS conducted a background check of Aaron Alexis for OPM," USIS spokesman Ray Howell said in...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) COLUMBUS, Ohio - It was a rally organized by gun-control supporters, but by the end, it looked more like an NRA rally. "As a gun owner, I'm a responsible person and I think it's responsible to ask to have all gun owners have a background check," said Blanche Luczyk. "It's just common sense. Any responsible person who is willing to take the ownership of a gun should be willing to have that background check." Luczyk was one of a half dozen members of the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns who hosted the rally in the Arena District on Friday....

 A homemade submachine gun Obtaining a gun without a background check in the United States (and much of the world) is a fairly easy process, and is becoming easier all the time.  Here are some of the common methods of obtaining a gun without a background check. 1. Have someone who can pass the background check buy it for you.  This is illegal to do for someone who is forbidden from possessing guns.  It is known as a straw purchase.  The BATFE says that it is the most common method for criminals to obtain guns.   In most states it...

Speaking to FOX NEWS' Chris Wallace on April 28, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) said he is "absolutely" going to bring his gun control bill to the Senate floor for another vote. The bill, the Manchin-Toomey background check 'compromise,' was tabled by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on April 17 after failing to get the votes necessary to pass. And since then, co-sponsor Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) has said he's done pushing the gun control bill. And as Wallace pointed out to Manchin, even Democrats have lost interest in it.

The number of individuals who have attempted to purchase a firearm, who have also been convicted of a crime, represents just 0.35% of all background checks completed by the FBI. According to data on the FBI’s website, since November of 1998, just 590,078 individuals who have been “convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year or a misdemeanor punishable by more than two years” have attempted to purchase firearms using the background check system. There have been 167,488,942 background checks completed over the same time period. … Data from the FBI suggest that criminals overwhelmingly do not buy...

I see that universal background check activists, who also favor permanent record retention, are trying to are trying to discredit talk that either of the Schumer bills will create a registry. It does not matter how the current Schumer bills read. If purchase records are kept those records constitute a gun owner registry. Period. Schumer and his cohorts may claim that a list of gun buyers is not a registry. Chucky may even put language in his bills forbidding a registry. But you can bet your life the next time some “must pass” bill hits the Senate, either Schumer or...

Everyone wants to keep criminals from getting guns. However, expanded background checks are not the simple answer that Sens. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) think they are. Unfortunately, as the Senate considers the Manchin-Toomey amendment, Toomey is simply wrong to assert: "It's the people who fail a criminal or mental-health background check who we don't want having guns." Toomey apparently does not understand how the background-check system works. Take his claim on Sunday: "Since checks began in 1998, more than 100,000 people who are ineligible to own guns have been denied them each year." Just because...

The deal senators have struck to expand firearm background checks to all Internet and gun show sales will drive up prices for consumers, weapons retailers say. Manufacturers say the deal, which is the crux of the gun bill that senators will begin debating this week, also includes language that gives background checks for sales at gun shows priority over in-store purchases — something their top trade group says is unfair. -------------cut------------------- But Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who was part of the negotiations with Mr. Toomey before dropping out of the talks, said the record-keeping provisions in the deal...

Appearing on CBS News' Face the Nation on April 14, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) said Newtown families have told him they know the bill he and Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) have crafted would not have prevented the heinous crime at Sandy Hook Elementary. In other words, Manchin's expanded background check "compromise" bill, being pushed in response to Newtown, does not do anything that would have stopped the Newtown tragedy from happening. Manchin said the families to whom he's spoken just keep urging him to do something in hopes that somewhere down the road new gun control legislation will "prevent one...

We suspected from media rumors that there was going to be an, “In the event of gun control, break glass,” strategy from the stronger Republicans. Unfortunately, the Toomey-Manchin deal has given real legs to this issue once again, and given murmurs from the House, including my own Congressman (not surprised), I don’t feel particularly good about the House. Getting a “true conservative” like Toomey on board with the deal, unfortunately, makes a lot of critters think “Well, if Toomey is on board, it must be OK!” And so Senator Tom Coburn floats an alternative that I think would be far...

SEN. PAT TOOMEY: I’m a gun owner, and the rights that are enshrined in the Second Amendment are very, very important to me personally, ..... I don’t consider criminal background checks to be gun control. I think it’s just common sense. If you pass a criminal background check, you get to buy a gun, no problem. It’s the people who fail a criminal or mental health background check that we don’t want having guns.

Will Senate Democrats be able to end debate on their new gun control bill Tuesday night? President Obama says that it is “not right” to continue the debate. But he might be more afraid that Senators will point out all of his false claims and reveal the gun control bill’s dangers. Mr. Obama got it all backwards in his April 3rd speech in Colorado: "tougher background checks . . . won’t infringe on the rights of responsible gun owners, but will help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people." The president kept claiming this week and last week...

Biden insisted that there would be no central registry for background checks allowing government to keep records on gun owners. “No way that Uncle Sam can go find out whether you own a gun because we’re about to really take away all your rights and you’re not going to be able to defend yourself and we’re going to swoop down with Special Forces folks and gather up every gun in America,” Biden added mockingly. “It’s bizarre. But that’s what’s being sold out there.”

(WASHINGTON) — Talks between two influential senators have emerged as the most promising route for a bipartisan breakthrough on expanding federal background checks for gun buyers, a pivotal part of President Barack Obama‘s plan for combating gun violence. One possibility being discussed by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., would involve expanding background checks to gun show sales and firearms transactions online, Senate aides said. Sales between close relatives and temporary transfers between hunters may be excluded, but an agreement along those lines could give Obama’s guns agenda a significant boost and would be a major expansion...