Free Republic

Cliven Bundy's standoff with the BLM is over a paltry monthly grazing fee. But it's also over more - the idea of the public interest.Perhaps the most remarkable feature of American democracy is the magnificent estate of public land that it reserved from the very beginning for the use of all citizens, rich or poor. There is nothing like it in the democracies of Europe, which came into being with nations already carved up into private fiefdoms. The Great Idea that hundreds of millions of acres of forests, deserts, rivers and prairies should be owned by, and managed for, the...

Wow, I sure wish I’d brought a smaller gun and less ammunition to this gun fight…NOT Ft Collins, CO --(Ammoland.com)- “An honest man speaks the truth, though it gives offence. A vain man, in order that it may.” ~ William Hazlitt With regard to the foregoing, without vanity nor immersing myself, once more, in the endless discussion about calibers and capacities, here is a sage note from a friend, recently retired, who worked in a large metro PD for many years.This particular metro area is famous for its high rate of violent crime: “During my career with the PD, I was...

By the time Gov. Brian Sandoval criticized the Bureau of Land Management for creating an “atmosphere of intimidation” while rounding up Cliven Bundy’s cattle, the militias were already on their way to Bunkerville, ground zero for what turned into an armed confrontation between gun-toting citizens and federal officers. As governor, Sandoval had every right to weigh in and try to tamp down BLM’s tactics. It worked. Under political pressure and the threat of violence, the agency shut down the weeklong roundup April 12 and released several hundred “trespass cattle” that had roamed the federal public land for 20 years while...

File this under the early bird gets the worm. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced this week that he plans to spend $50 million of his vast wealth to create a “gun safety” group that he hopes will “outmuscle” the NRA, according to The New York Times. But the new group, “Everytown for Gun Safety,” was a little too slow on the draw when it came to getting control of the group name on Facebook, with pro-gun activists acquiring the name first, BuzzFeed reported. A Facebook page has been set up under the same name as Bloomberg’s new...

Less than 72 hours after gun rights activists outmaneuvered Michael Bloomberg’s launch of a $50 million “Everytown for Gun Safety” effort by grabbing Facebook presence with that title, the page was taken down sometime late Friday or early Saturday and now people will find a Bloomberg site, but with angry comments posted by pro-gunners. But Facebook did not pull the page, according to Eric Reed, one of those responsible for launching the pro-gun grassroots effort to grab the “Everytown” presence on the social media site. Late Saturday evening, Reed told Examiner via telephone that “The page was not yanked by...

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...

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That adage has more application than usual in California, where Democrats hold all of the statewide offices and supermajorities in the legislature. They can enact any policies they want, with only the judicial branch offering belated checks on their power. And when I say belated, that’s literally the case with state Senator Rod Wright, whom a jury found guilty in January of committing eight felonies regarding his residency and eligibility for the office he held.Normally, politicians who get that kind of a verdict have the decency to resign. If not, the body in...

Beginning in early 2011, state Sen. Leland Yee repeatedly solicited bribes to fund his San Francisco mayor and California secretary of state campaigns, according to the FBI agents who brought him down last month. But he appears to have devoted more time and energy to a far more lucrative pursuit: crafting or carrying legislation benefiting special interests who supply campaign contributions. It's a practice that's all too common in Sacramento, but Yee was a master. :snip: Yee introduced 20 bills from 2011 to 2014 that advanced a special interest over the public interest, according to this newspaper's review of his...

Title pretty much says it all. Video at link.

A Milford man appears to be the first person charged after failing to comply with Connecticut’s law requiring the registration of certain firearms and standard capacity magazines: A 65-year-old man faces an array of charges after he allegedly shot a squirrel in his yard Monday morning. James Toigo, 258 Housatonic Dr., was charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm, cruelty to an animal, first-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree breach of peace, failure to register an assault rifle and three counts of possessing large-capacity magazines, according to a police press release. Police were directing traffic in the area of Housatonic Drive when...

While the gun-rights community is focused on the National Rifle Association-backed New York State Rifle and Pistol Association lawsuit (NYSRPA) challenging New York’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act, a lesser-known complaint has also been filed that has both promise and controversy built in. The case is Razzano v. Cuomo, filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York by “Gabriel Razzano, individually and on behalf of a class of all other persons similarly situated,” by attorneys Robert J. La Reddola and Steven M. Lester. What’s immediately noticeable in the brief is that the “class members”...

ATTACK: Matthew Douglas de Grood has been arrested after allegedly stabbing and killing five people at a house party in Canada [FACEBOOK/AP]Matthew Douglas de Grood, the son of a veteran police officer, has been charged with five counts of murder following the killings in Calgary.Police Chief Rick Hanson said: "We have never seen five people killed at one scene. The scene was horrific."At least 20 people were at the house party which was being held to celebrate the end of term at the University of Calgary.De Grood, 22, was invited to the party and soon after arriving picked up...

Happy Patriots' Day. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. ...   As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to...

A Riverside County sheriff’s deputy was hospitalized Wednesday after accidentally shooting himself in the leg when a large dog approached him at a Riverside home.

“We’re making progress but we need to do more,” McCarthy said. However, an investigation published by Chicago Magazine claims that the “progress” is an illusion. The article says that under pressure from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Chicago cops have been reclassifying murders and violent crimes. The result is a nearly unprecedented drop in numbers. "This is a betrayal of public trust in a sense that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Superintendent Garry McCarthy are public servants. They are paid by our tax dollars and we deserve in return truth from them,” said Elizabeth Fenner, Editor in Chief of Chicago Magazine. McCarthy responded...

Knoxville, Tenn. (CBS DC) – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a crowd of law school students that if taxes in the U.S. become too high then people “should revolt.” Speaking at the University of Tennessee College of Law on Tuesday, the longest-serving justice currently on the bench was asked by a student about the constitutionality of the income tax, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. Scalia responded that the government has the right to implement the tax, “but if it reaches a certain point, perhaps you should revolt.”(continued)

Over the weekend, I spent a lot of time reading about the Bundy Ranch Saga, looking into the area in Nevada where the Bundys live, and asking Google a bunch of questions I wanted answers to. While researching, I happened upon a press release from an environmental group, and decided to call the person listed as the "contact" person. The leftist environmentalist and I had about a 45 minute conversation over the phone about the Bundy Ranch, Nevada, and the history of what has been happening there, from his perspective. It was a long time to be on the phone,...

We are all miserably accustomed to being informed that our rights must be curtailed because the Founders “couldn’t have imagined” the way in which they would eventually be exercised. “Well, sure it made sense to have an armed population back when the people only had muskets,” this argument tends to go. “But now that four-year-old children can buy semi-automatic nuclear death-rays with their Happy Meals, it’s just anachronistic.”

There is a new wrinkle in rights-denial and the lame-stream media told you nothing, except we want to get as many people into the background-check system as possible, to make everyone safer. 90% of the public supports this. (92%, according to a democrat’s party mailer with Mr. Obama’s name on it) First, let me repeat: 90% of the public doesn’t support much of anything, especially gun stuff, so that number, like most “news” numbers these days, especially from advocates, politicians or government (unelected apparatchiks) is totally bogus (John Lott dissected their ludicrous math). Even so, try this “thought experiment” opinion...

Fourth week of prices. My intention was to generate trending graphs this week, but as I started playing with the data I realized this post would become hideously huge. So what I would like the reader base to do is to determine what graphs/trends would be most useful and/or interesting. As of right now we are tracking 42 vendors, 9 calibers, and 2 lot sizes. Against those 3 vectors, we have the prices by date. We could do average price per round per caliber by vendor. Or trend lines of prices by lot size by caliber by vendor. Really anything...