Free Republic

In a mixed decision, a federal appeals court on Friday struck down as unconstitutional several strict gun registration laws in the nation's capital, but upheld other restrictions aimed at public safety.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that the city cannot ban gun owners from registering more than one pistol per month or require owners to re-register a gun every three years. The court also invalidated requirements that owners make a personal appearance to register a gun and pass a test about firearms laws. 

The Washington Post’s token “conservative” columnist, Jennifer Rubin, was adamant. Writing at the Washington Post in early 2013, Rubin demanded that the Republican Party, if they wish to remain viable, embrace the new realities of modern conservatism, including “celebrity candidates” in a piece titled”            Tear down this icon: Why the GOP has to get over Ronald Reagan Wrote Rubin, among other things: The unfailing reverence on the American right for Ronald Reagan is understandable. He was the only exemplar of modern conservatism to win the White House, and unlike liberal icons such as Roosevelt or Johnson or Obama, he presided...

For years, in spite of the fact that the word “criminal” implies otherwise, I’d always figured that America’s criminals were people who abided by the law of the land and purchased their firearms legally through the proper channels. Imagine, then, my utter shock upon reading a just-released study from the University of Chicago Crime Lab, in which the vast majority of the city’s multitudinous gun-toting felons said they bought their firearms (or “gats,” in the parlance of our time) on the street as opposed to through legal means. Yes, it seems that news of Chicago’s strict gun control ordinances apparently haven’t reached the residents of...

Donald Trump and Jeb Bush couldn’t be more apart on the issue of immigration, and most of the conservative movement seems to be siding with Trump. Now, the billionaire real estate mogul and 2016 presidential hopeful has issued a damning video, using Jeb’s own words to skewer him. The video included a clip of a speech the former Florida governor gave in which he attempted to rationalize unlawful entry into this country. “Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony,” Bush is shown saying in the clip posted to Trump’s Facebook page. “It’s a — it’s an act of love.”...

LEXANDRIA, Va. — A new focus group commissioned by GOP pollster Frank Luntz shows Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is virtually invulnerable to attack by rival 2016 candidates and the media, leading Luntz to say that it is now "totally conceivable" that Trump will become the Republican Party's nominee for president. "The Republican leadership needs to wake up and see that the grass roots has abandoned them," said Luntz, the head of Luntz Global, a top GOP polling and messaging consultancy. "This is a different cat," Luntz added. "It's not like Ross Perot in 1992, where people were simply unhappy with...

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” -- U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 IntroductionEvery year, 300,000 to 400,000 children are born to illegal immigrants in the United States. Despite the foreign citizenship and illegal status of the parent, the executive branch of the U.S. government automatically recognizes these children as U.S. citizens upon birth. The same is true of children born to tourists and other aliens who are present in the United States in a legal but...

Decades of upgrades to the Internet have yet to fix one nagging problem: the people on it. The recent drama at Reddit is just the latest example. The managers of that expansive archipelago of forums have apparently just realized that the site provides a platform for some singularly hateful people. And yet they don’t seem sure what to do about it, beyond hiding some of the site’s uglier neighborhoods from public view. But let’s be fair to co-founder and now chief executive Steve Huffman (whose predecessor Ellen Pao resigned under fire after removing a community leader and banning some hate-mongering “subreddits”): People have been banging their...

AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott says he is reluctantly asking Texas Military Forces to arm soldiers at their home bases after Thursday’s attacks at military sites in Tennessee that killed four Marines and one sailor. Abbott said in a release Saturday that he will authorize Adjutant General John Nichols of the Texas National Guard to arm National Guard personnel at military facilities across Texas. Abbott’s move followed shootings on two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tenn. “It is with a heavy heart that I issue this order,” he said. The Republican governor said the Chattanooga events made “clear that our military...

As humans, we make intuitive choices every day about how to empty the bin, sort laundry or the best way to get to work.  But robots have a far more difficult time choosing from a never-ending list of possible actions.  To make robots respond in a more human-like way to tasks, researchers have developed an algorithm and are teaching machines to use it through an unlikely source - playing Minecraft. The algorithm was developed by computer scientists at Brown University.  It is designed to help robots better plan their actions in complex environments and use these skills in the real...

A mainstream Arizona newspaper is decrying the small section of the Arizona-Mexico border that has a 14-foot-high primary fence because it is too high for illegal immigrants to safely cross. The article, “Border Fence Jumpers Breaking Bones,” includes the claim that sections of the border with a 14-foot-high fence are “as tall as a two or three-story house” and tells the stories of several women who broke bones and were treated extensively to healthcare and surgeries at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. The writer never mentions any lives directly lost as a result of there notbeing a border fence in most...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Arizona’s voters were entitled to try to make the process of drawing congressional district lines less partisan. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 decision. She was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, No. 13-1314, concerned an independent commission created by Arizona voters in 2000. About a dozen states have experimented with redistricting commissions that have varying degrees of independence from the state legislatures, which ordinarily draw election maps. Arizona’s commission is most...

American citizenship as a birthright has recently become a prominent issue in the ongoing immigration debate, and congressional leaders sought answers during a hearing Wednesday. The House Judiciary Committee called upon legal experts to discuss whether the U.S. Constitution actually allows children born in the United States to be citizens, even if their parents are illegal immigrants. Under the Citizenship Clause, which falls under the Fourteenth Amendment, people born within the country or its territories are automatically granted citizenship

Analysis One of the most important functions of oral argument in the Supreme Court is that it can strongly shape the next round: the private deliberations among the nine Justices as they start work on a decision.  The much-awaited hearing Wednesday on the stiff new challenge to the Affordable Care Act strongly suggested that Topic A in private could well be: how bad will we make things if we rule against the government? Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who seemed decidedly more sympathetic to the government than might have been expected, worried over a constitutional blow against the states.  But even the two Justices...

Sarah Goodfriend and Suzanne Bryant were married this morning in Austin. The county clerk issued the couple a same-sex marriage license based on a court order. The order, the county clerk's office confirms, will only apply to this one couple, one of whom is "medically fragile." [See the judge's order here.] "I am happily following the court order, but the court order only applies to this one couple," says Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir. "And it is based on the idea that there are circumstances with this couple…one of them is medically fragile and they may not survive the...

If you use Facebook, pay taxes, enjoy fishing or drive a car, the 2014-2015 term of the Supreme Court, which begins Oct. 6, will be worth watching. Many of the cases from the last term touched on issues such as executive power, religious liberty, free speech and racial preferences. Here are highlights of the upcoming term: 1. Elonis v. United States: Aspiring rapper Anthony “Tone Dougie” Elonis was convicted of making criminal threats after posting rap lyrics on Facebook about killing his estranged wife. Did the government have to prove Tone Dougie intended to actually threaten his wife, or is...

MISSION, Texas -- Authorities prepare to use “whatever force is necessary” to defend international bridges between Texas and Mexico from U.S. based militia groups. The preparations by Texas law enforcement agencies are in response to recently discovered plans by militia groups to attempt closing several international bridges. The militia groups' plans are intended to be protests against the federal government's failure to secure the border between the U.S. and Mexico. The plans call for militia groups to begin blocking traffic on an undisclosed number of international bridges in the Rio Grande Valley on Sept. 20th, 2014. “We will not allow...

Department Discusses Pentagon-Style Structure to Stem Migrants, Crime WASHINGTON—Homeland Security officials are planning to create a military-like chain of command to police the Southwest U.S. border, in what could be the department's most significant restructuring since its creation in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to people familiar with the discussions. The plan would create a Southern Command, or Southcom in military parlance, bringing together groups of agents from Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, these people said.

Americans should be more concerned about their privacy being invaded by the spread of drones, Justice Sonia Sotomayor told an Oklahoma City audience on Thursday. Speaking before a group of faculty members and students at Oklahoma City University’s law school on Sept. 11, Justice Sotomayor said “frightening” changes in surveillance technology should encourage citizens to take a more active role in the privacy debate. She said she’s particularly troubled by the potential for commercial and government drones to compromise personal privacy. Said Justice Sotomayor: There are drones flying over the air randomly that are recording everything that’s happening on what...

James Vanderbilt's Truth, the high-profile movie chronicling the scandal that derailed Dan Rather's career, has gotten the greenlight to begin shooting this fall. Brett Ratner's RatPac Entertainment and Echo Lake Entertainment will finance the movie, starring Robert Redford as the iconic news anchor and Cate Blanchett as Mary Mapes, Rather's producer. At the same time, FilmNation has come aboard to represent international rights and will pre-sell the project to foreign buyers at the Toronto Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday night (based on the cast, it's sure to whet appetites). Mythology Entertainment is the driving force behind Truth, which was...

THE Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed its first two cases this year of Ebola but claimed they were unrelated to the epidemic ravaging West Africa. “The results are positive. The Ebola virus is confirmed in DRC,” Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi said, referring to tests undertaken on people after an unidentified fever killed 13 in the northwest Equateur province this month. He said the confirmation marked the seventh outbreak of Ebola in DR Congo, where the virus was first identified in 1976 near the Ebola River. The two new cases had “no link to (the epidemic) raging in West...