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In 1942, Wisconsin required deer hunters to wear a back tag so that they could be identified at a distance.  The exact what purpose of the new regulation is not clear.  It may have been related to WWII, because the back tag regulation was put in place between Pearl Harbor and the first deer season that occurred after the start of the war.  Perhaps Wisconsin legislators feared armed German or Japanese agents roaming the Wisconsin North woods.  Perhaps it was simply part of the Roosevelt push to create more bureaucratic administrative control over all aspects of life.  Wisconsin was...

Democrats, skittish over pushing gun control since Al Gore’s bid for the White House fell short in 2000, are once again flirting with the issue, preparing to pick perhaps the most anti-gun presidential nominee in a generation. Hillary Clinton’s provocations will be on the minds of thousands of Second Amendment activists gathering in Louisville beginning Thursday as the National Rifle Association hosts its annual meetings, insisting Mrs. Clinton’s fierce gun control stance will once again hamstring Democrats in a national election. Likely GOP nominee Donald Trump will speak Friday, delivering his fervent pro-gun stance to the one part of the...

If more people were armed, Donald J. Trump says at rallies, mass shootings like those in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., would be less deadly. If you have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, he wants to make it valid in all 50 states, as simple as a driver’s license. And Mr. Trump himself has a permit to carry a concealed handgun, which he is not shy about mentioning. “Somebody attacks me, oh, they’re gonna be shocked,” he warned last year. Mr. Trump, who promises to “totally protect” the Second Amendment, is scheduled to speak on Friday at the...

Four of the shots that cops fired at a madman waving a knife in Midtown failed to penetrate his jacket — which was not bullet-proof — and the NYPD will now check the weapons for malfunction, law enforcement sources told The Post. “The bullets we have may be defective and that’s very disturbing,” one source said. “When we fire our weapons we want to make damn sure that our bullets hit our target – neutralizing our target.”

LOUISVILLE — Gun rights backers lament what they describe as a leftward drift on Second Amendment rights by Democrats in recent years, and predicted the push for stricter laws in blue state bastions such as California and Illinois will cost them even more independent-minded voters. Within the last decade, Democrats, including then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, were making overtures to gun groups including the National Rifle Association. But the 2012 Newtown school shooting spurred a realignment, with Democrats at the national level increasingly adopting a gun control posture, pushing gun rights Democrats to suppress their own views, said attendees at...

Obama has consistently spoken out against Second Amendment rights. A poster showing Barack Obama is seen in the background as customers line up to look at firearms at a gun shop in Fort Worth, Texas, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008. The Cheaper Than Dirt gun store recorded a record day of gun sales the day after the election of President-elect Barack Obama and is having trouble keeping up with the demand for assault riffles. (Flickr) It sounds like Hillary Clinton would not be any better.

The California Senate voted on Thursday to outlaw the sale of assault rifles with easily detachable ammunition magazines known as bullet buttons. The measure is among a wide-ranging slate of gun control bills that is being debated as some Democratic leaders rushed to head off a ballot measure advocated by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. All 11 measures would significantly tighten California's gun laws, which are already among the strictest in the nation. The measures then will head to the state Assembly.

I recently downloaded the application for renewal of a New Hampshire License to Carry Pistol/Revolver. I have had carry permits in all New England states for the past 20 years. Much to my surprise, the renewal application adds the requirement that your local chief of police or the colonel of the NH State Police first issue you a letter to be attached to the application stating that you have never been convicted of a drug crime, have never been involved in domestic violence, have not been convicted of any other crime, and have never been "treated for mental illness or...

According to police, a Kokomo, Indiana, robbery suspect fled the scene after his would-be victim drew her gun in self-defense. The incident occurred around 5:45 a.m. on May 12. According to Fox 59, a woman was walking to her residence and was confronted by a suspect standing at the door. “She said the man displayed a gun, and he threatened her and demanded her money.” She responded by pulling her own gun, and “the suspect ran away.”

Mesquite, TX investigators said according to witnesses, an incident that started with a harmless traffic maneuver, ended with a man being shot and killed in self defense this Sunday. Officers responded to a report of gunfire in the area of Rodeo Center Drive and Military Parkway about 10:15 p.m. where they discovered the body of Armando Macias Jr., 25, who died from apparent gunshot wounds. When Macias and two family members witnessed a car turning around in their driveway, they began to yell and curse at the people in the vehicle. The driver of the car, who was unfamiliar with...

This week, students at Portland State University decided to take a break from whatever studies they have and make fools of themselves. They staged a “die-in” to protest the fact that police carry guns. That’s right. They want officers unarmed. “So, I do believe I have mentioned the die-in before—what that entails is a lot of us who are abused so to say…we’re going to be laying down in the street outside so [the president] can see us so he knows what the Board of Trustees does to us, which is it kills us,” one protester explained. The video...

Proponents of more gun control for American citizens are frequently people who live their lives surrounded by good guys with guns. Moreover, gun control proponents are also people who use tragedies as an opportunity to push more gun laws even when said laws would have done nothing to prevent the tragedy that occurred. Occasionally, all these hypocritical qualities are found in one person or, in this case, seven people.

On the way to Wisconsin from Dallas, I had a minor automotive mishap.  I was on Highway 151, just across the Mississippi, and the Wisconsin border, when the battery light came on.  I had considered changing out the battery in Arizona when I left, but thought it could take one more trip.  I was wrong.  Things started going crazy with the sensors and instruments a few miles later, but I managed to take the first exit and ended up in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Dodgeville, trying to diagnose the problem.  The parking lot seemed like a decent place...

... There appears to be a troubling trend within the VA. As of December 2015, almost 99 percent of the names listed on the 'mental defective' category for the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, otherwise known as the national gun-ban list, are from the Veterans Administration. Once a person's name is on that list, they are banned from owning or possessing a firearm. Their Second Amendment rights are completely null and void...

What the Black Lives Matter movement misses about those police shootings. For the last year, the Washington Post has been gathering data on fatal police shootings of civilians. Commentators have taken the Post’s data as evidence that the police are gunning down unarmed blacks out of implicit bias. But a close examination of the Post’s findings casts doubt on the notion that these shootings were driven by race. The Post began its police shootings project in response to the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. As of Jan. 15, the Post had documented 987 victims of fatal police...

In a radio interview with a Philadelphia radio station today, former Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) called GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) a “dumbbell” for her opposition to gun control. Listen to the full interview below.

The gun used by former neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman to kill unarmed teen Trayvon Martin has sold at auction for over $120,000, according to reports. The last bid on the auction site United Gun Group was for $138,000, according to the Orlando Sentinel. TMZ reported its sources saying the last bid was phony, but that the weapon did sell for over $120,000. Zimmerman’s efforts to hawk the infamous weapon have been hampered by fake bids submitted by those offended by crass sale.

Image from wkrg.com The RG 23 is the quintessential cheap handgun.   It never had a good reputation.  Many have claimed a lack of reliability, so I suspect that quality control was not in the same class as the old Smith & Wesson revolvers. The rough trigger makes accuracy difficult, even for experienced shooters.  The steel inserts in ZAMAK alloy construction are corrosion cells waiting to happen.  The revolvers are so inexpensive, they are not economically worth repairing.  They sold, in 1969, for 19.95.  The current price on the used market is about $50. But, they are a gun.  They...

Doctors routinely ask if you smoke, and counsel you to wear your seat belt when you’re in a car. Technically, either behavior isn’t any of their business, but they do fall under the umbrella of preventive care. Now Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the violence prevention research program at the University of California Davis, and his colleagues want to add firearms to the office visit for similar reasons. First, he says that no federal or state laws prevent doctors from asking their patients about whether they have guns in the home.

Donald Trump will deliver a speech to thousands of NRA members at an annual meeting in Kentucky this week. But he wasn't always so pro-gun. Rather than impose gun control on law-abiding citizens, he wants to imprison gun-toting violent criminals for longer periods of time. Rather than expand background checks, he wants to fix the current system, which he says is "broken."