Free Republic

Nicole Oulson told a national television audience today that she wants Curtis Reeves, the man accused of killing her husband in a Wesley Chapel movie theater, to spend the rest of his life in prison. “He brought an unfair life sentence to me to have to raise my daughter alone, to have to live without the love of my life, for my daughter to grow up without her daddy by her side for graduation and marriage,” Oulson said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It was so unnecessary, it was for no reason. So I want him behind bars and to...

Idaho Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch are co-sponsoring legislation to expand gun rights of law-abiding citizens in states like Idaho. The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2014 will allow an individual permitted or entitled by their state of residence to carry a concealed firearm the right to maintain that concealed carry in any other state that allows or does not prohibit the practice. In addition, concealed carry permits will be treated like drivers’ licenses, in that an individual will not have to obtain a separate permit for each state. Introducing the bill along with Crapo and Risch are...

DALLAS COUNTY, AL (WSFA) - A tense ordeal inside a Dollar General store in Orrville ended with a gunman dead at the hands of a customer who took action. The fatal shooting happened around 12:45 p.m. Thursday on Highway 22. Dallas County Sheriff Harris Huffman Jr. says the gunman walked into the store waving a gun in the air and forced a cashier and customer at gunpoint towards a break room area. At that point, the customer pulled out a concealed weapon and shot the suspect in the chest once. The gunman was pronounced dead at the scene. The entire...

A 43-year-old father was shot dead by a retired cop in a Florida cinema after a row about him texting his three-year-old daughter as they waited for the movie to start, witnesses said. Chad Oulson was shot in front of his wife and horrified movie-goers during an argument with 71-year-old Curtis Reeves. The victim's wife, Nicole, was injured in the shooting after holding her hands out to try to shield Mr Oulson during the confrontation at a movie theater near Tampa on Monday. After Reeves fired at his chest the victim was heard saying: 'I can't believe I got shot',...

State Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) is opening her district office to help individuals submit concealed-carry applications online since the Illinois State Police are not accepting paper applications at this time. Rezin said she hopes this will remove any barriers for individuals seeking to apply.

The campus liberals are up in arms about the recent changes to North Carolina’s concealed carry laws. High on their list of objections is a new provision that allows concealed weapons permit holders to keep their guns locked in their car trunks when parked on public university property. This replaces a previous absolute ban on having guns on campus - unless, of course, you are a member of the campus law enforcement community. There is one major objection to the new law, which, when rebutted, causes liberals to raise additional objections. I deal with that major argument and each additional...

Farmer Brown had a large chicken coop on his property. He noticed that foxes were getting in and stealing and eating his chickens, so he determined that he needed to fence it in. Farmer Brown sought permission from the local government for a high fence. Immediately, the wheels of government started to turn: Deputy Fox had him fill out some forms, Sheriff Coyote checked his fingerprints, County Clerk Jackal processed his applications and his filing fee; Judge Wolf supervised an audit of Farmer Brown’s friends and doctors to make a determination on his medical and psychological health. Finally, the local...

Concerned by what he said is an approval process "fraught with problems and holes" for concealed carry permits, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said today he has asked the Illinois State Police to enter blanket objections for anyone with a domestic violence, gun possession or gang arrest in the past seven years.

Politics is dominated by sound bites meant to generate emotion, not rational discourse. One of the most dominant sound bites in recent North Carolina politics is that the law now allows people to carry "guns in bars." Upon hearing those three words, "guns in bars," people recoil in horror. The very idea that North Carolina is full of bars where people are packing heat is enough to make tourists avoid the state altogether. However, when one compares the old gun law with the new one, things make perfect sense. On October 1st, North Carolina's absolute ban on handguns in...

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - The family of a suspected thief is lashing out after their son was shot during an armed robbery. Relatives of Adric White, 18, believe the Good Samaritan who opened fire should have “just left the store.” “If his (the customer) life was not in danger, if no one had a gun up to him, if no one pointed a gun at him - what gives him the right to think that it's okay to just shoot someone?” said the relative. “You should have just left the store and went wherever you had to go in your...

Prejudicial harassment of certain citizens, simply because of their life choices or cultural values, is an ugly pattern among the left. An African American woman was recently told by a school principle that – even though her child attended the school – she was no longer permitted to engage in school activities, volunteer at school functions, or even “trespass” on school property. . . The laughable reason given in the school’s decision to ban the parent? The parent’s concealed weapon permit “frightened” the school’s principle. According to WRDW in Augusta, Tanya Mount posted a picture of her new concealed carry...

When lives are on the line, what saves lives -- not politics – should guide policy. Gun control advocates used to warn about blood in the streets if we didn’t tighten gun laws, but as concealed handgun permits in the U.S. have doubled from 2007 to now, murder rates have fallen by 18 percent. Enter a new strategy: playing the race card, along with claims that allowing people to defend themselves means that whites will hurt blacks. But this strategy ignores the crucial fact that blacks kill over 91 percent of blacks and that whites kill 84 percent of whites....

After ranking the Best States for Gun Owners in 2013, we’re back to rank the Best Concealed Carry States. Since federal law specifically addressing the issuance of concealed carry licenses does not yet exist in the U.S., individual states are left with the task of regulating concealed carry laws within their own borders. Over the past few decades, most states in the country have gradually shifted their carry laws to become less restrictive. Despite fewer restrictions, legally carrying a concealed firearm remains vastly different from one state to another—and in some cases one town to another. The diversity of laws...

While people like Piers Morgan, Barack Obama and Dianne Feinstein continue to push fear-mongering over guns, a recent story makes the point that guns are not evil, but rather a good deterrent to evil. This couldn't be more apparent than at a recent party that took place in Arizona, where a citizen who was carrying his weapon probably saved everyone at the party from a gunman with a rifle. 10-things-not-to-do-when-carrying-concealedA 27-year-old man got into an argument at with some party goers. After a time, the man was asked to leave, and he did. A short while later he returned. Armed...

When I saw the story, my jaw dropped and I was almost afraid to read on, lest I find the headline too good to be true. But it’s true–ABC News obtained an exclusive interview with Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble at the organization’s annual assembly in Cartagena, Columbia, taking place this week. For the news report summarizing the interview, ABC ran this headline: After Westgate, Interpol Chief Ponders ‘Armed Citizenry’ You read that right, 2nd Amendment guardians. The man in charge of Interpol, the venerable international law enforcement organization, has gone on record suggesting that gun-owning citizens are a realistic...

This is a story of a mass shooting that might have been if not for the efforts of a concealed carrier. However, don’t expect to see this story on the national news since there were no fatalities. Several guests, in their 20′s and 30′s were attending a party at a Glendale, AZ home when one of the guests, identified only as a 27 year old male, got into an altercation with several people at the home. The 27 year old was asked to leave, which he initially did. However, shortly thereafter, the 27 year old returned, this time armed with...

Wisconsin has reached a concealed weapons permit milestone. Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced Tuesday that permit number 200,000 was printed Monday at the Department of Justice’s secure processing center in downtown Madison. Wisconsin became the 49th state to license people to carry concealed weapons in 2011 with the passage of Act 35. The law took effect Nov. 1 that year and Van Hollen announced extra staffing to handle the expected rush of applicants. Van Hollen said the DOJ continues to receive 500 to 1,000 applications a week. “The dedicated staff is able to process the majority of these applications...

Up until this week, Starbucks had been neutral when it came to its gun policy, which meant that the coffee giant respected local laws regarding firearms. This policy was widely respected among gun-rights advocates—a Starbucks Appreciation Day has even been organized at stores throughout the country for the past few years—but it also drew the ire of anti-gun groups and lawmakers who have been pressuring Starbucks to change its ways. Although the coffee chain didn’t reverse its policy toward guns, on Wednesday the CEO issued a statement essentially saying firearms are unwelcome (but not banned). Even though this wasn't...

This past Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled unanimously in People v. Aguilar that the Illinois law that banned carry outside the home was illegal under the Second Amendment. Yesterday, this ruling caused Cook County Circuit Judge Ellen Mandeltort to reverse herself and drop charges against Deafalla Haddad. Mr. Haddad had been charged with the unlawful use of a weapon after he was found in possession of a handgun during a routine traffic stop. Cook County Circuit Judge Ellen Mandeltort last week denied Deafalla Haddad's request to drop the charges. But the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that part of...

Let’s be clear: I’m not a real Starbucks fan in the first place. The coffee is horribly expensive and, frankly, you can get a better cup for a quarter of the price at a Quick Trip. Interestingly enough, even McDonald’s has stepped up their coffee quality lately. Dunkin’ Donuts is good also, but I prefer to sweeten my own coffee, thank you, so don’t ask me how many Sweet ‘n Lows I want. Another thing …. I stopped going to Starbucks when they came out and openly supported Obama for a second term. I guess it goes with the territory...