Free Republic

In 2016, Americans continue to break records for gun sales.  While the National Instant Check System (NICS) does not track gun sales directly, the numbers are highly correlated. The numbers of NICS checks, and the increase in private firearms, have skyrocketed during the Obama administration.The total for 2016 through the end of May is 11,698,006 instant checks. That is more than the entire year of 2007, which held the record up to that year. Thus, during the Obama years, the number of private firearm sales has doubled.  In 2015, the highest year on record, the total number of checks...

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is blaming an exhaustive White House vetting process for the fact that the Obama administration has not yet named a person to run the U.S. Agency for International Development. Six months into the administration's tenure without having appointed someone to the agency's top spot, Clinton told USAID employees on Monday that several people had turned down the job due to overly burdensome financial and personal disclosure requirements that she called a "nightmare," "frustrating beyond words" and "ridiculous."

A Justice Department division will no longer refer to people released from prison as “felons” or “convicts” because of the stigmatizing effects of the terms, an agency official announced in a Washington Post editorial Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT Instead, Assistant Attorney General Karol Mason said the “disparaging labels” will be replaced by “person who committed a crime” or “individual who was incarcerated.” The new lexicon is set to be utilized in “speeches, solicitations, website content and social media posts” emanating from the Office of Justice Programs. “I have come to believe that we have a responsibility to reduce not only the physical...

To make public-sector jobs more accessible to convicts, President Obama has issued a new order prohibiting federal agencies from asking candidates about criminal history when applying for positions. It’s part of the commander-in-chief’s mission to reduce barriers to reentry and employment for incarcerated individuals once they leave jail. The new measure, announced in a Friday media dump, will affect tens of thousands of federal government positions funded with taxpayer dollars. Government often tries to escape fallout by burying controversial or bad news right before the weekend, but it’s difficult to keep this outrageous development below the radar. At the president’s...

California’s Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Democratic lawmakers appear to be on a collision course over a new round of gun control measures. Newsom, claiming lawmakers are dragging their feet, is collecting thousands of signatures in pursuit of a gun initiative ballot measure in November. But lawmakers say they’re planning to address these issues via legislation, and the initiative could hurt what they’re doing. Critics also say the proposed California ballot initiative contains a wide variety of restrictive, costly and unreasonable gun and ammunition control measures. The proposed “Safety for All As of 2016” initiative has 600,000 signatures from...

It's easy to forget the cold, dark days of winter, 2013. The horrific tragedy of Newtown had touched the hearts of the nation, and every news outlet -- every one -- was blaming the Second Amendment community for what happened there. GOA was receiving death threats -- not only against us, but against our children. Even Fox News was opining that the battle against Bloomberg's gun control was hopeless, as every news outlet spent every hour of the day predicting that our organization -- and the "gun manufacturers' lobby" [sic] in general -- would be absolutely and totally destroyed. It...

On February 24 New York Times op-ed contributors Abner Mikva and Lawrence Rosenthal argued that it is time to register all guns and license all gun owners; background checks are not enough. Moreover, the authors suggested such licensing and registration would not violate the Second Amendment. According to the NYT op-ed, background checks are not sufficient, there are too many ways to go around them. “A more effective system would require everyone who owns or acquires a gun to register it.” And a second component to this “effective system” would be a licensing requirement for all persons who wish to...

The FBI "temporarily" halted efforts to process denial appeals on background checks, thereby leaving up to "7,100" Americans in limbo as to whether the federal government will allow them to buy a gun. According to USA Today, FBI Assistant Director Stephen Morris said the halt in processing appeals, which went into effect on January 20, became necessary because the number of Americans buying guns has overwhelmed FBI background check examiners.

2015 was a record year for the National Instant Checks System (NICS), and for firearm sales. The previous record year was in 2013, another year in which President Obama put considerable effort into passing strict gun control, and failed. It is one of the few policies that President Obama has not been able to use his allies in the media to ram legislation through Congress. In 2013, there were 21,093,271 background checks completed through NICS, according to the FBI.  That amounted to 16,031,210 additional private firearms added to the stocks, according to the ATF. The numbers for NICS checks...

As President Obama plans to pass new gun-control measures by executive order to extend the reach of background checks to all private sales, you may be wondering why there is such opposition to requiring all private-party gun sales to go through the same background check that gun dealers do. Evidence should drive public policy, not hope. If a policy has been tried, has it produced the desired results? This may be a surprise, but many states already have mandatory background checks for all firearm transfers, or for all handgun transfers; it is already a federal crime to transfer guns to...

Politico reports that President Obama's upcoming executive gun control will force a number of private gun sellers to get their Federal Firearms License (FFL) and perform background checks on every gun sold. [Snip] According to Politico, "Obama will tighten the definition of what it means to be 'engaged in the business' of firearms sales." Currently, those who sell firearms with the "principal objective of livelihood and profit" must have an FFL. Those selling as hobby or those who sell occasionally from a private collection do not. Obama plans to change the language so that those who sell as a hobby...

If there had been a proper background check on Bathhouse Barry BEFORE he became President, he never would have been allowed any security clearance, much less allowed to become President!!!!!!!!!!!!

Your alternate headline comes from Charles Cooke: “President Obama announces record gun sales in 2016.” So two of his major priorities heading into a presidential election year are (a) gun-grabbing and (b) telling Americans they’re un-American for worrying about importing thousands of Muslims from the site of the most vicious sectarian war on Earth. Good luck, Hillary. "The main thing that I've been trying to communicate over the last several of these horrific episodes is that, contrary to popular belief, Americans are not more violent than people in other developed countries," Mr. Obama said. "But they have more deadly weapons...

Police chiefs from across the United States called on Monday for universal background checks for firearms purchases, saying opinion polls consistently show that most Americans support such restrictions. The proliferation of firearms is one of the factors behind a rise in homicide rates in many U.S. cities this year, according to senior law enforcement officials at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago. …

Deputies estimate that they've seized between 7,000 and 10,000 stolen guns from a house and warehouse near Pageland. Deputies have arrested Brent Nicholson in connection to the stolen goods. Chesterfield County Sheriff Jay Brooks says the seized guns, ammunition, and hundreds of other items were all found on a single property off of Highway 9 outside of Pageland city limits. Brooks says the guns alone filled one tractor trailer and ammunition filled another. Nicholson was arrested and charged with trafficking opium and heroin, earlier in the week in Union County. Deputies reportedly went to serve him with a subpoena Friday...

CNN recently released the results of a poll it taken from 4-8 September.   Question 14, shown in the screenshot above, has several hypotheticals that are left up to the responder to self-define.   Here is the question and hypothetical outcomes, from the poll: If gun control laws were changed so that more comprehensive background checks were in place for all gun purchases, how likely do you think it is that they would:  Prevent those with mental health problems from buying gunsPrevent convicted criminals from buying gunsMake it harder for law-abiding citizens without mental health problems to buy guns Included in the...

Listening to that was like listening to Bloomberg. Close your eyes and you cannot tell the difference. If he is the nominee, I am staying home.....and I have never done that.

Hoping to start a bloody "race war," a black, gay, in-your-face Obama-supporting former TV reporter horrified Southwest Virginia TV viewers yesterday when he stalked and coolly murdered two white former TV station colleagues and wounded a white interview subject during a live broadcast.

The gun grabbers are up in arms this week while demonstrating the conveniently situational respect they have for the constitution when it comes to the Second Amendment. For our lead item, we return to New York where Governor Andrew Cuomo has just moved to quietly suspend a portion of the odious SAFE Act, resulting in all sorts of anger from the Democrats here. (From the New York Times) The administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo agreed on Friday to suspend a plan to require background checks on ammunition sales, putting in doubt part of the gun control law that...

In the wake of the Charleston shooting, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) are considering ways to renew their failed push to pass meaningful gun control legislation. In separate interviews Tuesday night at a reception before a ceremony hosted by Sandy Hook families to honor Toomey, they discussed their desire to find a new way forward. “We want to make sure we have the votes. Pat’s going to have to, and I’ll work with him, to get some of our colleagues on the Republican side,” Manchin said, adding he hasn’t talked directly to Toomey about a revival. Manchin...