Free Republic

At least one law enforcement agency in California is changing the way it grants concealed carry permits as a direct result of Peruta v. San Diego. The Orange County Sheriff’s department is dropped the “good cause” requirement yesterday, and is adopting a policy that sounds a lot more like a voluntary “shall issue” process (my bold below): The Orange County sheriff loosened requirements Wednesday for obtaining a concealed-weapons permit in light of a recent federal appellate court decision that deemed many urban counties in California to be overly restrictive in saying who can and can’t carry a concealed weapon.

Star-Ledger slams legal meddling with concealed-carry law New Jersey's biggest newspaper isn't happy about Wyoming's attempt to meddle in its gun laws. It seems Wyoming is leading a coalition of 19 states supporting a man's Supreme Court challenge to New Jersey's concealed-carry law, and the Star-Ledger think the least populated state in the union should "butt out." States "have broad powers to set gun policy, and in ours, a strong majority supports strict laws," the paper says in a blistering editorial, explaining that most people in the state don't want to worry that "the guy they’re fighting with over a...

Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina signed S.308 into law today, February 11th.    The reform restores the rights of armed Americans to eat in the same restaurants as the rest of the population.  South Carolina is one of the last states to restore this right.  Depending on definitions, between one and four states still restrict people who are exercising their second amendment rights from obtaining service in places that serve alcohol.   North Dakota law allows legally armed people into portions of establishments that serve alcohol, for example. Louisiana may be the last state to have a complete prohibition.  ...

Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina has said that she will sign the gun law reform, Bill 308.  The law has been widely touted as a "restaurant carry" bill that removes the state restrictions on people with concealed carry permits carrying their defensive firearms into establishments that serve alcohol.    Second amendment supporters have argued that they should be able to eat at the same restaurants as other citizens, without discrimination by the government.  The new law will prohibit legally armed citizens from consuming alcohol while in these establishments.  Restaurants owners will be able to discriminate if they chose...

The gun prohibitionists are already saying that blood will run in the streets when the Illinois General Assembly crafts some form of concealed carry legislation in accordance with today's ruling by Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. “As the dissenting opinion points out, the two judges who threw out Illinois' law did not take account of the danger to the public from stray bullets, and they ignored the Illinois legislature's determination that carrying weapons has been shown to escalate violence,” said Lee Goodman, an organizer with the Stop Concealed Carry Coalition.If Lee had taken the...

Women should be allowed to carry concealed firearms on college campuses. Instead, President Obama favors Gun Free Zones, which endanger women’s health. One in five female college students are sexually assaulted or raped according to a new report issued last week by the White House Council on Women and Girls. Declaring that sexual assault “affects every one of us,” Obama picked up his pen and signed a piece of paper (a “memorandum”) calling for the creation of a campus rape response task force. Sure, this token effort could help Obama’s party appeal to female voters during a midterm election year....

WICHITA, Kan. - Preparations are underway at Wichita's Hyatt Regency to welcome hundreds of Kansas Republicans this weekend. When they show up at the door they'll see the familiar sign forbidding firearms, but they can ignore it if they have a concealed carry permit. Kansas GOP chairman Kelly Arnold says that was part of the deal that brought the state convention to this hotel. "The Second Amendment is a fundamental right that we have, and it's part of our Republican Party platform," Arnold says. "I know my committee and my convention goers are going to want to be able to...

REGARDING THIS ARTICLE POSTED ON FRThis morning I followed up the article and sent an email to the CEO of CIVITAS MEDIA. From: douglas XXXXXXX Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 2:11 PM To: Michael Bush Cc: JLawitz@cititasmedia.com Subject: publishing data base of concealed gun permits Mr. Bush: If your group follows through with the idea of publishing information about those with concealed carry permits, will you allow me to run an ad in your newspapers that identifies the name and address of those among your 1400 employees that do not have such a permit? That would be a very...

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....