Free Republic

George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watchman who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager in Sanford, Fla., three years ago was involved in another shooting in the Sunshine State, again raises questions about concealed carry permits and the billion-dollar gun industry that advocates for legislation aimed at making it easier for Americans to carry firearms everywhere, all of the time. Matthew Apperson of Winter Springs, Fla., who said that Zimmerman threatened him following a road rage incident last year, claimed that he was acting in self-defense when he fired a single shot through the passenger side window of...

The St. Paul Police Department SWAT Team Commander, Tim Flynn, says the military weapons they use only come out when they face high-risk, dangerous situations. "These weapons are critical to protecting the safety of the public and police officers," Flynn said. The SPPD has 99 AR-15 rifles on loan from the federal government, and they did receive a federal grant to obtain an armored vehicle used in potentially violent cases such as last year's arrest of cop killer, Brian Fitch. In October we reported on how four police departments returned military issued equipment obtained at no cost through a government...

 Link to video This is what astroturf looks like in action.  Imagine what the Senators are thinking.  It goes on for ten minutes, with the "activists" reading from the same script, over and over.   It is quite humorous to watch.  There is a good sum up at the end by Open Carry Texas. Dean Weingarten:Link to Gun Watch

Since the landmark 2008 Heller v. District of Columbia case, which Second-Amendment lawyer Alan Gura argued before the Supreme Court, anti-gun officials in the nation’s capital have spent every waking hour trying to avoid doing what the high Court ordered be done: allow District residents to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. Gura has been fighting them every step of the way; and on Monday, was victorious once again, as a United States District Court granted his injunction to stop the city from requiring concealed carry permit applicants to demonstrate a “good reason to fear injury to his...

A little over a week ago George Zimmerman was involved in a shooting. You probably recall the story since it was all over the web. And as with the link I just provided, that’s how it was described in headlines across the spectrum. George Zimmerman was involved in a shooting. And why would anyone be surprised? You know what a bad guy he is, right? He was probably just trying to gun down some other helpless citizen. But as it turns out, the story is a bit more complicated than the initial headlines indicated. Local police and one judge have...

Boy Scouts Put an End to Dangerous Water Gun Fights No squirt guns for the Boy Scouts of America. Water guns are apparently such a problem that the youth organization posted a blog post titled "Water guns OK for target shooting, not for firing at other Scouts."

Ugh, not this idiocy again (my bold below): A House Democrat has introduced legislation that would require sellers to obtain a background check for all guns sold at gun shows. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday reintroduced the Gun Show Loophole Closing Act, a bill long championed by former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.),. The bill would subject anyone selling or transferring a gun to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and require that transfers be reported to the attorney general.

In four states (New York, California, Massachusetts, and Arizona), it is illegal to carry nunchucks. Oddly, those same states have a total of 60,715 legally registered machine guns. Machine guns are one of six categories of “Title II” weapon, which are regulated federally under the National Firearms Act.

They caught Clint Eastwood crossing open ground, very visible. They opened fire with everything they had. Almost every liberal media guru out there had Clint’s newest movie, American Sniper, in their sights as they unleashed barrages of reviews, newspaper and internet columns, even tweets. Their mission: to brand the movie as, “Almost Too Dumb to Criticize,” the words Rolling Stone used. The roly-poly chowhound Michael Moore tweeted, “My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren’t heroes. And invaders r worse.” There were many others. I imagine you...

In the wake of the Sunday shootout between outlaw biker gangs in Waco, Texas, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America is stressing that outlaw biker gangs would not have guns if legislators expanded background checks. According to The Hill, Moms Demand Action’s Texas leader, Angela Turner, said, “There is no single solution to ending gun violence, but we do know that background checks on all gun sales save lives and keep guns out of the wrong hands.”

A couple of weeks ago a toddler shot himself in the head after finding a gun under the pillow of his parent's bed. Just days later a police officer accidentally shot his mother at a family wedding while adjusting his jacket. Last year, a nine-year-old girl was being shown how to use an automatic weapon and accidentally killed her instructor. In Idaho a two-year-old boy was shopping at Walmart with his mother and three other children, when he found a gun in his mother's bag; he pulled the trigger and killed her. Some would argue that these tragic stories...

Since the landmark 2008 Heller v. District of Columbia case, which Second-Amendment lawyer Alan Gura argued before the Supreme Court, anti-gun officials in the nation’s capital have spent every waking hour trying to avoid doing what the high Court ordered be done: allow District residents to exercise their right to keep and bear arms.

As the toll from shootings continues to increase in Milwaukee — including 11 people injured in seven separate shootings over the weekend — state Sen. Nikiya Harris Dodd is asking the community to not forget about the grass-roots efforts in the neighborhoods most affected by the violence. And she's right. Those efforts are critical; if neighbors don't work together to take back their neighborhoods block by block those neighborhoods have little chance of becoming safer places. That work is happening in many city neighborhoods; Harris Dodd pointed to several such efforts in a meeting with the Editorial Board on Monday,...

Benjamin Jasper Carter In a previous essay, I mentioned that we do not know what proportion of unsolved homicides are justified homicides.  The reason is that most homicides are violent criminals killing other violent criminals, and that because a person is a criminal, they are reluctant to report a self defense shooting to police.  From the previous essay: In the United States, about 37.5% of the homicides are unsolved.   In Chicago in 2013, the number was 75% unsolved.   Most homicides involve criminals killing other criminals.  How many of those would be justifiable if solved is unknowable; but clearly some...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Federal authorities are investigating a Connecticut gun-maker after agents found nearly 3,000 assault rifle parts missing serial numbers, according to recently filed court documents. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents seized nearly 300 of the AR-15 parts from Stag Arms in September following routine inspections, prosecutors said. At the time, the father of Stag Arms owner Mark Malkowski told authorities that the employee who places serial numbers on parts was on vacation. The New Britain-based gun-maker gained a high profile in the state when Malkowski became a vocal critic of a stricter state gun-control...

Sen. Ted Cruz is asking lawmakers to consider allowing troops to carry personal firearms on base for protection, reviving a fight that has previously been a nonstarter with Congress after military leaders said they didn't support the change. While many lawmakers are open to having a discussion on changing the rules in the Senate Committee on Armed Services, most said that they would defer issues of base security to military leaders — who have historically been against allowing concealed carry on their posts. Mr. Cruz formally sent a letter last month to Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican and chairman of...

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Outside a Masters Drive convenience store Tuesday night, neighbors placed candles and flowers in memory of a young man most knew only as the "nice guy."

MILWAUKEE — The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, charged with enforcing the nation’s gun laws and regulating the firearms industry, has been so hobbled by high-profile operational failures, internal dysfunction and external limits on its authority that the agency should be eliminated and merged into the FBI, a new report concludes. The report, by the left-leaning Center for American Progress, comes in the wake of a bill by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that seeks to dissolve the agency and move its law enforcement and gun industry regulatory functions into the FBI and other agencies. The bill and...

Ten months after striking down the District’s long-standing ban on carrying firearms in public as unconstitutional, a federal judge Monday ordered the city to halt enforcing a key provision of the new gun-permitting system it adapted in response. As passed by the D.C. Council, the District’s new carry legislation remains among the strictest in the nation, requiring applicants to state good reason to carry a weapon in order to obtain a permit from police, matching laws in Maryland, New Jersey and New York. However, in a 23-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr. ruled that condition — known...

The Boy Scouts of America has put out approved activities for its members, and water gun fights are strictly prohibited.A blog for the organization’s leaders said May 6 that pointing simulated firearms at people is not allowed. “Why the rule? A Scouter once told me this explanation I liked quite a bit: A Scout is kind. What part of pointing a firearm [simulated or otherwise] at someone is kind?” said Bryan Wendell on the scouting website. The rule is clarified in the Boy Scouts of America National Shooting Manual, which says “For water balloons, use small, biodegradable balloons, and fill...