Free Republic

While there were two lawyers at the defense table, there were three at the State’s: Bernie de la Rionda, John Guy, and Richard Mantei. With about a hundred lawyers to pick from, knowing her office would be in the spotlight, State’s Attorney Angela Corey wouldn’t have put anyone on the team she thought would make her look bad. Mantei was third chair, and the lowest guy on the totem pole gets the scut work in any organization. For instance, he was the one they sent in to argue that the state had proven its case when it hadn’t during the...

Watching the Zimmerman trial in 2013 was like watching the OJ Simpson trial in 1995: while the general public got a hell of an education on how these things work thanks to live TV trial coverage, those “in the business” were assessing the skills and strategies of the key players. The face of the defense was that of a two-man team, Mark O’Mara and Don West. The general consensus was that they did a helluva good job, and that O’Mara was the best lawyer in the courtroom during that trial. Some criticized him for not being harsher on some witnesses;...

Anti-gun politicians continue to promote falsified statistics that suggest we’re progressing towards a gun free country. You’ve probably seen the NRA’s map that shows every state’s concealed carry policy, but check out below how much we’ve gained over the last couple of decades. Isn’t that green a pretty sight to see? Here we are in 2013 during the “height” of firearm banning and yet only a handful of Northeast states (plus California and D.C.) have restrictions on concealed carry. It just reinforces the lesson that you can’t trust everything these legislators/reporters tell you about public opinion. Obviously our country still...

ST. LOUIS (AP) – A federal appeals court has refused an urgent request by gun rights advocates to let Illinois residents immediately tote firearms in public under the state’s fledgling concealed-carry law, though the panel has decided to give the matter a speedy review. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request last Thursday and said it expects both sides to submit written briefs by Aug. 14 regarding whether the months-long wait to implementing the law is unreasonable and illegal, as critics insist. No oral arguments on the matter had been scheduled as of Monday. Mary Shepard...

This is one of those movements that are in the right direction, though one does wonder how those who have met the requirements to carry concealed were not allowed to carry their weapons in bars and colleges in the first place. However, a new law went into effect on Friday in North Carolina which allows residents in the state with a carry permit to take their firearms into restaurants that serve alcohol, bars, playgrounds and even colleges! You know the gun grabbers are going to be beside themselves on this one, but keep an eye on statistics. I’m sure they...

For protection against racists, the Second Amendment is better than mass protests.Protesting George Zimmerman’s acquittal will not protect black Americans from future encounters with men who approach them in the dark, suspicious that they are up to no good. Protection could come from doing as Zimmerman did — carrying a concealed weapon. Unwilling to become victims of street crime or mass shootings, and afraid that Congress and the president will restrict their ability to acquire firearms in the future, millions of Americans are buying handguns and obtaining concealed-carry permits. In the first quarter of 2013, Sturm, Ruger’s backlog of gun...

Two Milwaukee men — each with a state permit to carry a concealed weapon — traded dozens of shots in a rolling shootout through two sides of town and down a freeway, the kind of scenario concealed-carry opponents feared would turn road rage incidents deadly. No one was killed or injured in the June 26 incident, according to a criminal complaint that charges just one of the men, who says he feels like he's being punished for being a victim. "I can assure you, he was definitely the aggressor," said Eric Adamany, 27. "It absolutely blows my mind he's not...

Earlier I asked the question "Why no riots yet". I think I may have the answer. Most of the thugs who have been twitting and mouthing the hate, predictions, threats, etc., during the last two weeks are dependent upon the entititlements of the gubmint. That includes directions and orders. Since the gubmint has only said they are investigating the events about this incident, the thugs do not know what to do. Until Zero, or Sharpton, Jackson, or NAACP tells them to do something they are lost. On a more grim note, why no investigation into the 11,000 murders that have...

State troopers confiscated tampons and maxi pads from people entering the Texas Senate gallery on Friday afternoon as senators began debating a controversial new abortion regulations that are almost certain to pass. However, folks with conceal-and-carry permits are allowed in with their guns, as state law allows. It seems like an unusual threat analysis, but things are different in Texas.

Credit: wiz722A school district in Ohio has opened the opportunity for teachers and staff members to carry a firearm on school grounds. The new policy was announced by the Newcomerstown Exempted Village School District earlier this month and will be implemented beginning with the 2013-2014 academic year.Previously the school district's bylaws and policies strictly prohibited the presence of any type of weapon on school grounds, but a group of parents rallied to make serious changes, writes the Times Reporter. Paying attention to statistical trends, the Parent Safety Committee pointed to a report which concluded that "with a single exception,...

Nancy Grace on Thursday got into an extremely heated debate with Frank Taaffe, a friend of George Zimmerman, over the series of events that led to the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Taaffe argued that Zimmerman had a “legal right to carry” his firearm with him and was doing nothing wrong when he noticed a “suspicious” character. “He was a legal concealed weapons permit carrier,” he said. For some reason, Grace was baffled by the mention of a concealed weapons permit. “A legal concealed weapons carrier,” she shot back. “Did you just say that?” Taaffe reiterated that Zimmerman was...

Hint: Chicago is NOT an example of gun control working.The headline on last Sunday's Chicago Tribune was stark and arresting: "A thousand shootings." That's what Chicago experienced in the first six months of 2013. It works out to more than five a day.So what crime issue got Gov. Pat Quinn worked up last week? The danger posed by Illinoisans holding state permits to carry concealed firearms. "My foremost duty as governor is to keep the people of Illinois safe," he said in issuing an amendatory veto of a bill to legalize concealed-carry in the last state without it.His changes included a ban on...

Guns: Illinois has become the last state in the union to allow citizens their full Second Amendment rights, and officials in the murder capital of America worry about the consequences of citizens defending themselves. Illinois' legislature on Tuesday voted to let gun owners carry concealed weapons. The action followed a violent and bloody Fourth of July weekend in President Obama's hometown during which 74 people were shot and 12 were killed. Permission for concealed carry in Illinois was prompted by a ruling late last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. It found that...

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Illinois today became the last state in the country to legalize the concealed carry of guns after both the House and Senate rejected Gov. Pat Quinn’s attempt to rewrite the compromise bill. Senators voted 41-17 to override Quinn’s amendatory veto of the bill. Earlier in the day, the House voted 77-31 to overturn the governor’s rewrite. The measure now becomes law, though the actual ability of gun owners to carry a concealed firearm remains months away. The action by the Democratic General Assembly was a major repudiation of the actions of the state’s Democratic governor. Supporters of the compromise legislation...

The Illinois House, with no debate, voted 77-31 today to override Gov. Pat Quinn’s changes to a compromise plan to regulate the concealed carrying of firearms in the state. The state Senate must also vote to override Quinn’s rewrite of the bill for the measure to become law. That vote is expected later today.

Yesterday, with the federal court deadline for enactment of concealed carry legislation fast approaching, Governor Pat Quinn (D) issued an amendatory veto on House Bill 183. This legislation was introduced and passed by the state legislature last month in an attempt to comply with a ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on December 11, 2012, that invalidated Illinois’ total ban on carrying firearms for self-defense. Governor Quinn’s irresponsible amendatory veto, if allowed to stand, would impose some of the strictest concealed carry laws in the nation and make a mockery of the serious issue...

With all this talk of “The Wild West”, I thought it might be informative to look at the reality of crime in the “wild west” cattle towns and compare them to the peaceful streets of such eastern, gun-control paradises as DC, New York, Baltimore and Newark.In his book, Frontier Violence: Another Look, author W. Eugene Hollon, provides us with these astonishing facts:In Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell, for the years from 1870 to 1885, there were only 45 total homicides.  This equates to a rate of approximately 1 murder per 100,000 residents per year.In Abilene, supposedly one of the wildest...

Firearms sales have been on the up and up since President Obama was elected in 2008, and the federal government’s attempt to pass more national gun-control measures did nothing to quell the firearms industry’s personal economic boom. It isn’t merely gun sales, however, that have lately been experiencing a major surge; the WSJ has the numbers indicating an encouraging trend of more and more Americans taking the responsibility of carrying a concealed weapon upon their person. We’re only halfway through 2013, and it already looks like plenty of states are on track for their biggest permitting years on record: Since...

Lawmaker says Quinn to amend concealed carry bill By Associated Press Gov. Pat Quinn will put an end Tuesday to weeks of speculation and waiting by using his amendatory veto powers to rewrite legislation allowing the concealed carry of weapons in Illinois, the bill's sponsor says. State Rep. Brandon Phelps, a Harrisburg Democrat, said the governor's office told him Quinn will sign an amended bill Tuesday — seven days before a July 9 deadline to legalize carry of weapons after a federal appeals court found Illinois' last-in-the-nation ban unconstitutional. Phelps said he was not told what will be changed but...