Free Republic

In January of 2016, on the first day of the restoration of some open carry rights in Texas, I stood in front of the Benbrook Police Station, looking at the recently placed 30.06 and 30.07 signs. I noticed that the signs were not of the required dimensions, so they are likely not enforceable in a court of law.  But police, like fire in the quote attributed to President Washington,  (employed in various forms since the 1500's) are "dangerous servants and a fearful master".  I tread lightly around police, just as I do around high explosives or high powered machinery. ...

Police prosecutors have dropped a charge against a soldier who caused panic after jogging through suburban Brisbane with a gun-shaped object last year. A full-scale police response was launched after 26-year-old Nicholas Paul Latham was spotted running through Rochedale South wearing camouflage clothing and carrying the object in December last year. Several schools were shut down and Mr Latham was eventually tackled by police. He told police it was all a misunderstanding as he was training with a metal object shaped like a gun, but was charged with public nuisance. His matter went before the Holland Park Magistrates Court on...

Since Facebook seems to be happily ejecting gun folks from it's site (some after years of generating ad revenue for FB), the folks in my gun-related podcasts and radio shows have talked about seeking out alternative social media more friendly to gun owners and freedom loving people. There was talk about MeWe and Gun District. Just a heads up.

Facebook users can't buy and sell guns on Facebook itself, but can post their guns, then make the sale in person. House says that sort of sale is no different than posting a classified ad in the newspaper. "It has a lot to do with political correctness. I think it has a whole lot to do with the current administration's views on guns and their crusade against guns." Facebook won't actively search for users violating the policy, but will rely on its users to ‘report’ the activity. The new policy also applies to Instagram which is owned by Facebook. The...

Could this statement be any clearer? From ClickonDetroit: Abu-Rayyan posted. “It’s one of the biggest ones in Detroit. I had it planned out. I bought a bunch of bullets. I practiced reloading and unloading.” . . . “It's easy, and a lot of people go there. Plus people are not allowed to carry guns in church. Plus it would make the news. Everybody would've heard. Honestly I regret not doing it. If I can't do jihad in the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here." He had also told the undercover agent that a church would be an...

Full title: Trends in Firearm-Related Emergency Department Visits and Hospitalizations in California, 1992 to 2010 A friend of mine who works for a Republican legislator in California sent me this link which I saved as a pdf. According to her there are some Democrats who want this report suppressed because it isn't helping them with making the case that gun ownership is a "health care crisis" in California. The actual statistics in this report show an absurdly huge (74%) decline in people getting injured by guns in California between 1992 and 2010. In that same time gun ownership went through...

Clinical psychologists and political propagandists know very well that, how a person perceives reality - how a person perceives the world around him - becomes the world a person lives in. No one knows this better than members of the antigun movement and those that support its efforts, including antigun legislators and billionaire globalists, all of whom see, in America's Second Amendment, something incompatible with the new pan-Western ethos. They unabashedly seek not only to repeal the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but to debase it, to demolish it, to obliterate it.

This past June, pulp novelist Brad Meltzer revealed that while he was touring Secret Service headquarters for research on a White House thriller, agents shared with him what Meltzer called a "secret." President Ronald Reagan packed heat. "It's true," they said. "A .38. Reagan used to hide it in his briefcase and take it on Air Force One." Not a secret, actually. Edmund Morris said the same thing in Dutch. And Ronald Kessler's In the President's Secret Service reported that "Reagan confided to one agent that on his first presidential trip to the Soviet Union in May 1988, he had...

Governor Herbert of Utah continues to be the main blocking force preventing the passage of Constitutional carry in Utah.  Utah is a gun friendly state.  There are open carry rights; the state constitution is strong.Utah Constitution, Art. I Section 6, enacted 1984: The individual right of the people to keep and bear arms for security and defense of self, family, others, property, or the state, as well as for other lawful purposes shall not be infringed; but nothing herein shall prevent the legislature from defining the lawful use of arms. Utah also has one of the lowest crime rates...

A West Virginia carpenter by the name of Derwood has developed a small 3D printed semi-automatic 9mm weapon which only requires metal for the steel barrel, springs and bullets. Three years ago, the first 3D printed gun was fabricated, a simple weapon called "The Liberator," and since that time the weapons have been evolving. The United States Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 allows citizens to manufacture their own guns, as long as they do not sell or transfer them without first obtaining a federal license. "This gun has been a work in process for about a year now," Derwood...

Minnesota residents are lining up to obtain gun permits, with an uptick of 6,000 permits last month. Fears over terrorism and President Obama's recent executive actions on gun control are responsible for the rush, though the Star Tribune added that some of their numbers might be permit renewals. Regardless, there still was a drastic increase in Minnesotans who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights: Since the beginning of the new year, there have been at least 221,712 active permit holders — a 6,189 increase from December 2015, according to a monthly data report from the state's Bureau of Criminal...

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Last December, we saw 3.3 million background checks being conducted by the FBI on firearm purchases. That's a record number. In all, 23.1 million total checks were run through the National Instant Criminal Background Checks (NICS) system, making 2015 a record year for gun sales. Again, the reasons for the dramatic increase are straightforward. We have a pro-gun control Democratic president; we’ve seen a rash of horrific terrorist attacks; and said president has enacted a series of executive actions on gun control. For January, it was yet another record year, as Stephen Gutowksi of the Free Beacon wrote earlier this...

On Thursday, a bi-partisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 766, the ‘‘Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015,” sponsored by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO). As we reported last year, this bill targets the abuses of Operation Choke Point (OCP), an Obama administration “enforcement” program that lumped together legal and illegal businesses into a “high risk” category and threatened the banks with intense regulatory scrutiny. The goal of OCP was to deter the banks from forming or continuing relationships with the targeted industries, thereby driving them out of business. Included on this list were firearm and ammunition...

WASHINGTON — The centerpiece of a plan for stemming gun violence that President Obama announced last month largely amounts to this: an updated web page and 10,000 pamphlets that federal agents will give out at gun shows. In a tearful display of anger and sadness in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama ordered steps intended to limit gun violence and vowed to clamp down on what he called widespread evasion of a federal law requiring gun dealers to obtain licenses. But few concrete actions have been put in motion by law enforcement agencies to aggressively carry out...

Washington University in St. Louis and the United Way of Greater St. Louis have formed a joint partnership that aims to provide support and resources to local initiatives that are uniting in their efforts to combat gun violence in the region.

How do you think you'd respond in the event of a so-called "active shooter" situation? Most of us like to think that we'd be able to respond quickly, decisively, and dare I say, it, heroically. The reality of the matter, however, is that the vast majority of people who haven't been properly trained to react would be standing there when the bullets start flying, thinking "this can't be happening to me," as they start taking rounds.

FULL TITLE - Federal court deals blow to gun reformers saying people have 'fundamental right' to own assault weapons in rejection of Maryland law A federal court said that assault weapons are in such "common use" that owning them is a "fundamental right" in a decision that could force the Supreme Court to rule on whether the firearms are legal. On Thursday, a three-judge federal panel dealt a blow to anti-gun violence advocates when they rejected portions of a Maryland gun reform law. The legislation was passed following the Sandy Hook massacre which claimed the lives of 20 children and...

Knife Rights and Wisconsin Force worked together to pass a significant reform of antiquated knife laws in Wisconsin.  Wisconsin knife laws date back to the muckraker days, when the media was able to pass nonsensical laws based on "trendy", "progressive", emotional notions rather than on common sense, or any consideration for the the Constitution.  Wisconsin’s silly and dangerous switchblade ban dates to 1956.  It has been used to fine, convict and incarcerate hundreds, if not thousands of people who were only exercising their Second Amendment rights.In 1998, Wisconsin finally finished the arduous process to pass a right to keep and...

When DPMS was founded, one of the core principals was getting ARs into hunters' hands. While the original AR design wasn't ideal for most hunting scenarios, the DPMS G2 is certainly another step in the right direction. Chambered in .308, this gun is light and should handle extremely well. The gun features a carbon fiber handguard, a plunger ejector on the bolt, and will retail for about $1,699.Video at link