Free Republic

A special election to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ former seat in the U.S. Senate until 2021 unexpectedly went to the Democrats, to the joy of those seeking stronger gun laws. Former federal prosecutor Doug Jones, the Democrat running against longtime Alabama Chief Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, bested the Republican in a very tight election Tuesday. When Jones takes office, providing outstanding votes don’t tip the final tally in Moore’s favor, the GOP will control 51 of 100 seats in the Senate. This means Republicans will have that much more pressure to both unite their party as a block...

The sniper is an incredibly efficient fighter, compared to the typical infantryman. Consider that in World War II, American infantry units fired 25,000 rounds to kill just one enemy soldier. By the Korean War, that figure jumped to 50,000 rounds, and the select-fire M14 and M16 infantry rifles of the Vietnam War only seem to have produced more misses, requiring the expenditure of 200,000 rounds to kill one enemy combatant. It is ironic that a country built on a tradition of rifle marksmanship took nearly 200 years to formally embrace the sniper, the man that represents the military apex of...

How many of you shotgun lovers would love to try this fully-automatic shotgun for hunting? Or, maybe for home defense. From the outside appearances it looks like any ordinary shotgun. But, man when you squeeze that trigger its fully auto! Unfortunately, this piece of work is not available in the U.S. due to federal gun laws. If it was legal would you get one? See the complete full-auto shotgun video here.

The jurors who acquitted Philip Brailsford of second-degree murder last week were told to judge him based on "how a reasonable officer would act, versus a regular person with no police training," as The Arizona Republic put it. That distinction was crucial, because a "regular person" would never get away with shooting an unarmed man who was crawling on the floor, sobbing and begging for his life. Like other recent cases in which jurors failed to hold police officers accountable for the unnecessary use of deadly force, Brailsford's acquittal shows that cops benefit from a double standard. Unlike ordinary citizens,...

Daniel Shaver did not deserve to die. He made an otherwise innocuous mistake, as people often do, especially in high pressure situations and after having consumed alcohol. But he did not deserve to die for it. Shaver could have been any one of our twenty-something children or siblings. The events of the night in which 25-year old Shaver died nearly two years ago, are not in dispute. Shaver was drinking with two companions in a Mesa, Arizona La Quinta Inn. At one point that evening, likely showing off, Shaver pointed a pellet rifle he used for his job in pest...

Investigators working to determine if gun malfunctioned or if the shooting was human errorHarris County authorities say a 36-year-old man walking toward a building that houses a suburban Houston gun range has been shot and killed after a rifle being worked on inside the building discharged. Sheriff's spokesman Thomas Gilliland said the bullet from the hunting rifle went through a wall and struck the man who had just got out of his car. A medical helicopter took the man to a Houston hospital where he died later Tuesday morning. The victim has not been immediately identified. KXAN-TV is reporting the...

Full title: Pelosi claim that GOP invites violent criminals to carry concealed weapons gets her 'Three Pinocchios'Nancy Pelosi earned “Three Pinocchios” from The Washington Post's Fact Checker over a tweet claiming that House Republicans are inviting violent criminals, domestic abusers and convicted stalkers to carry concealed weapons. The House minority leader sent the tweet last week after House Republicans passed the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, sending it to the Senate by a 231-198 vote. “Inviting violent criminals to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives,” Pelosi tweeted. “Inviting domestic abusers to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives. Inviting convicted stalkers to...

The U.S. Army’s full-size XM17 MHS. Sig Sauer plans to sell a version of this pistol on the commercial market. (101st Airborne Division photo) A commercial version of the U.S. Army’s newest service pistol, the M17, will be sold by Sig Sauer starting next year, Military.com reported. “We are planning to do a limited release of about 5,000 of the Army variant of the M17 for the commercial market,” Tom Taylor, Sig Sauer’s chief marketing officer and executive vice president for commercial sales, told Military.com. “The timing is not finalized yet, but it looks to be late spring.” Taylor told...

A judge on Dec. 8 released graphic video showing Daniel Shaver crawling on his hands and knees and begging for his life before he was shot and killed. The shooting, by Philip “Mitch” Brailsford, then an officer with the Mesa Police Department, occurred after officers responded to a call about a man allegedly pointing a rifle out of a fifth-floor window at a La Quinta Inn. The graphic video, which was released after a jury on Thursday acquitted the officer of murder and manslaughter charges, stoked outrage on social media and renewed calls for reforms in law enforcement. See the...

The Sig Sauer P239 is a compact semi-automatic pistol that holds seven .40 caliber rounds in the magazine. The .40 caliber bullet recovered from Kate Steinle's body was a hollowpoint design. It appears to have entered her body while tumbling after ricocheting off Pier 14's paved surface. The Sig Sauer pistol was stolen from a federal Bureau of Land Management ranger in San Francisco on June 27, 2015, four days before the homicide.  His vehicle was locked.The gun was out of sight, in a holster in a backpack. The rear passenger window had been smashed in. The pistol was...

If you have the stomach for it, I want you to watch one of the most outrageous and infuriating videos I’ve ever seen. It shows the police shooting of Daniel Shaver in Mesa, Arizona. He was crawling on his hands and knees, crying, and begging police not to shoot him. An officer shot him anyway: The Washington Post’s account is decent, but you have to watch the video truly grasp the strangeness of the requests: In fact, the Post actually sugarcoats the encounter. At one point an officer tells him “do not put your hands down for any reason,” even...

As information was still coming in regarding Monday’s attempted terror attack in the New York City subway, an MSNBC panel discussing the news ridiculously shifted the topic to outrage over guns and gun crime in the U.S. And on top of that, they bemoaned how President Trump would try to make the attack an immigration issue to support his temporary travel ban.The person responsible for kicking off the gun discussion was former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. After commenting on how few terror attacks have hit the U.S. since 9/11 (missing a few as he rattled them off), he opined: We will continue to...

Anyone that loves to see large sparks from their shotgun, should have a look at this, you may already have the ingredient at home. From a simple idea, TAOFLEDERMAUS Youtuber loaded shells with a small wad of steel wool on top of the powder to create “poor man’s dragon breath” rounds. Dragon’s breath is the sparks that travels almost 40 yards. Not bad for something you probably have in the cupboard under the kitchen sink! What’s crazy about this is that its easy to create this, but we urge you to not to try this at home. See the full...

Our national tug-of-war over the right to keep and bear arms has been going badly for those of us who believe that the Second Amendment protects the right of each individual to protect himself as he thinks best. Back in 2008, Heller laid the foundation for a robust approach to the Second Amendment and in 2010, McDonald told local governments that they couldn’t disregard Heller and limit ownership of firearms however they pleased. And early last year, the Fourth Circuit’s Kolbe decision held that judges must employ strict scrutiny when they consider restrictions that state legislatures place on gun ownership....

The video was filmed by Leon Lorenz on 14 June, 2010. Lorenz originally filmed grizzlys without carrying a pistol. His mother insisted that he start carrying a .44 magnum a decade earlier. The video has not seen much play in the United States.From theglobeandmail.com:Mr. Lorenz has filmed grizzlies for the past 19 years and knew well how to prepare for an encounter with a bear. He'd washed with unscented soap and was sure to walk without making any noise. He knew he could likely talk his way out of a grizzly attack by calmly reassuring the beasts. After all, he'd...

On Tuesday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, frequent MSNBC Republican guest David Frum lamented over the trend towards loosening gun laws -- even after high-profile mass shootings -- and then predicted that it would be necessary to convince gun owners that "you're a bad parent if you have a gun in the house" to get the public to support more gun restrictions. After Frum had spent time lamenting that since the Newtown school shootings in 2012, there have been a loosening of gun laws in many states, host O'Donnell followed up by suggesting that most Americans agree with a...

GATE CITY — As construction on the Route 23 bridges in Weber City continues, one small business owner has voiced concerns about the effect it’s having on her profits. Mary Murphy, owner of Gold & Guns in Weber City, told the Scott County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday that her business has declined noticeably over the past year or so. Though she attributes some of that decline to the lingering effects of the last recession, she believes the construction — and its estimated completion time of summer 2019 — is the main problem. “I do believe that summer of 2019...

Included in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Donald Trump intends to sign soon, is a provision that will allow the military to save an estimated $200,000 per year by selling surplus M1911 pistols to those in the public interested in purchasing them. Used widely during World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, these historic firearms have been officially out of service since 1985, when the military replaced them with Beretta 92 pistols. Since then, the military has been forced to store leftover M1911 pistols at a price of $2 per year....

The Big Apple convenience store in West Paris, Maine was the location of a stick-up that went south for the would-be robber after the clerk didn’t buy that she had a gun. As reported by the Sun Journal, Paige Tuttle, 26, was arrested Friday on a felony robbery charge after the clerk told the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office she had threatened to shoot him if he didn’t give her the cash from the till. The clerk told officers he noticed Tuttle had made up her finger in the shape of a gun and stuck it under her sweater before...

In Rockledge, Florida, at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, the 25th of November, 2017, two armed citizens stopped a mass murder in progress.  Police Chief Joseph P. LaSata of the Rockledge Police Department, made clear the intervention of the armed citizens was responsible for stopping the murderer.  Two employees were shot, one killed, in the parking lot. Then two armed employees intervened. From the transcript of this video from wesh.com: Matt Lupoli, reporter:Another employee, a manager, came out with a gun of his own and shot and wounded Baily. That man has not been named, but police say he saved several...