Free Republic

Members of the Lexington Militia, Massachusetts Colony, lined up in formation on the town green and waited. When the British Regulars marched into town and saw them they rushed over and squared off facing them, ready for a fight. No one knows who fired the first shot. It was the beginning of a very long day, the first day of our American Revolution, April 19, 1775. To what extent revolution is in the air today is a matter of perspective. But the parallel here, with the possibility of armed clashes, cannot be missed. Resistance to the gun registration laws of...

Nonsensical Gun Control is the kind that wants to disarm you just when you need it most. It goes beyond nonsensical really. It goes all the way to tyrannical, murderous, and conspiratorial. Former inmate of Dachau, Theodore Haas, was asked by Aaron Zelman, founder, ‘Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership’ “Did the camp inmates ever bring up the topic, “If only we were armed before, we would not be here now”?” Hass responded: “Many, many times. Before Adolph Hitler came to power, there was a black market in firearms, but the German people had been so conditioned to be...

Despite France's draconian gun laws, terrorists have once again proven that only good people obey bad laws, and they do so to their own detriment. It is important to realize that the best security practices, people, and technology governments have to offer could not thwart the ISIS attacks in Paris. Nor will these practices, institutions, and technologies thwart the next attack. [..] Thankfully, the reality of these attacks is that they can be deterred, disrupted, and even defeated by properly trained and well-armed civilian populous. A handful of properly trained civilians carrying concealed weapons in the Bataclan Theatre could have...

More modern samizdat art from the new media.  This poster succinctly portrays the disarmist strategy of disarmament by a thousand cuts, or incremental confiscation. The strategy worked in England and Wales (and one could argue, medieval Japan), but it is not working in the United States. The premise is to make guns costly and difficult or impossible to use without severe legal impediments.  This is supposed to lead to reduced levels of gun ownership.  When gun ownership drops to the point where it becomes politically ineffective, then wide scale confiscation becomes possible. Until that point, incremental confiscation is the...

In days of yore the Lie was 'No one is talking about Confiscation', but something has changed as of late. Such talk is now common amongst the national Socialist elite despite the lack of a shooting being prevalent in the media. It is axiomatic that one does not call for confiscation until its foundational steps are in place: Intergalactic Background Checks and Registration. The reason should be clear to everyone, people need to be fooled into registering their firearms with the solemn promise that it won't lead to confiscation. This was the case in the UK for example, were the...

On November 2, The Daily Beast pointed to recent statements from President Obama and Hillary Clinton regarding the implementation of Australian-style gun confiscation and suggested “civil war could erupt on American soil” if any administration actually tried to confiscate privately owned firearms. The Daily Beast theoretically agreed that “confiscation on a massive scale” may be “the only way to solve American gun violence,” but they pointed out that it was not realistic and suggested Hillary risks causing irreparable divisions by talking about confiscation then mocking gun owners as conspiracy theorists waiting for “black helicopters” to come take their guns away....

<p>The highly influential Center for American Progress, which has deep ties to the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton, recently released an extensive report calling for the nation’s lead agency on gun regulation to be merged into the FBI.</p> <p>The generalities of the center’s 182-page report were widely covered by media upon its release last May. However, the details in the report were largely unmentioned, including by conservative media agencies.</p>

In a ruling that directly paves the way for mass confiscation of firearms in America, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in a much-anticipated decision, has upheld the constitutionality of the New York SAFE Act of 2013. Shockingly, the court ruled that nearly all of the most drastic gun control law in the history of the United States did not violate the Second Amendment and is therefore constitutional. That’s right, a law passed in the wake of Sandy Hook that included and paved the way for confiscation of millions of legally purchased firearms has been ruled “constitutional”...

Allahpundit wrote yesterday about Hillary Clinton’s startling lurch to the left on guns. The story dealt largely with her fascinating suggestion that the United States should look at a “buyback program” similar to Australia’s draconian laws which they instituted in 1996 following a mass shooting in Tasmania. (Barack Obama made the same reference last year, by the way, though it never went anywhere.) As AP noted, this wasn’t a gun buy back program such as many states and municipalities have offered. It was mandatory confiscation with a modest cash reimbursement to soften the blow. Before moving on to the latest...

Stirring myself to the right words after One of Those Tragedies always takes a while. First, there’s the dragged-down feeling of “here we go again.” The antis rush gleefully on stage to perform their blood dances and once again, decent people need to respond to them, if for no other reason than to keep the record straight. We can’t even stop to speak with decency and sympathy for the horrible losses because to speak at all is to become political. And that’s obscene. Mass murders, whether by bomb or knife or vehicle or poison, are horrific individual tragedies. But mass...

By now the reader is well-aware of the recent school shooting that took place at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. Another mass shooting, another excuse for the left-wing vultures to prey on the carcasses of the dead. Another opportunity for Pres__ent Obama to grandstand and huff and sigh and affect an air of righteous indignation. Another occasion for left-wingers to roll their eyes and complain about how even after this shooting, those dastardly right-wingers still won't support "common sense gun laws." The reason we don't, of course, is because the left-wingers are still making the same old, nonsensical, discredited...

October 3, 2015 Obama's wink and nod on gun confiscation By Thomas Lifson President Obama couldn’t be more eager to change the subject of national news discussion away from the catastrophic failure of his Middle East foreign policy. So the shooting in Roseburg, OR offered an opportunity to gin up his base and re-focus his domestic opponents on playing defense against gun control. By framing his goal as the extremely vague phrase “common sense gun control legislation,” he avoids specifics. And in fact, nobody on his team has yet come up with a concrete suggestion that would have saved the...

BOSTON (CBS) — If you legally own a firearm in Boston, expect to be hearing from the mayor and police commissioner soon. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Police Commissioner William Evans announced Wednesday that they’re taking new measures to try and reduce gun violence.

A team of Spanish police experts flew to the French island of Corsica on Tuesday to retrieve a masterpiece by Pablo Picasso that was smuggled out of Spain, where it is considered a national treasure. A spokesman for Spain's Civil Guard said four police experts in national heritage and several Culture Ministry officials flew to recover the painting, "Head of a Young Woman," which is valued at 24 million euros ($26 million). The officer said they expect to return with the painting later Tuesday. The work is owned by Spanish banker Jaime Botin, brother of the late Emilio Botin, former...

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- A group of residents in northern Idaho lined up outside a U.S. Navy veteran's house on Thursday to protest claims that federal officials are planning on confiscating the man's weapons. Idaho Republican state Rep. Heather Scott of Blanchard said the Veteran Affairs office has sent a letter to John Arnold of Priest River warning him that he cannot possess or purchase firearms. The protest -spearheaded by Scott- attracted roughly 100 people. Among them were Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler, who promised to stand guard against any federal attempts to remove Arnold's guns, and Republican Washington state...

Barack Obama and his party have made no secret of their desire to enact strict gun control legislation in America. Their efforts have been rebuffed so far by the American people and the Republican legislature. But that hasn’t stopped them from plotting any number of ways to try to restrict gun ownership through regulatory, procedural, or executive actions. Those efforts are bound to continue, especially now that the United States Supreme Court appears to be open to reaching decisions based on political considerations and public pressure, as opposed to basing their decisions solely on the U.S. Constitution. What does all...

On June 26, the Huffington Post ran a column focused on how Australian comedian Jim Jefferies “shoots down [the] 2nd Amendment with humor.” A central component of this “humor” is to equate gun rights with slavery and talk about how a constitutional amendment—like the one that banned slavery—could be used to overturn the protections the Second Amendment affords to the rights of self-defense and bearing arms. After all, Jefferies makes clear that he does not believe guns are actually used for protection. And he tells an anecdotal story to explain why: I had a break in in Manchester, England where...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court says a program that lets the government take raisins away from farmers to help reduce supply and boost market prices is unconstitutional. The justice said Monday that forcing raisin growers to give up part of their annual crop without full payment is an illegal confiscation of private property.

Do you remember what happened when Cyprus decided to defy the EU? In the end, the entire banking system of the nation collapsed and money was confiscated from private bank accounts. Well, the nation of Greece is now approaching a similar endgame. At this point, the Greek government has not received any money from the EU or the IMF since August 2014. As you can imagine, that means that Greek government accounts are just about bone dry. The new Greek government continues to insist that it will never “violate its anti-austerity mandate”, but the screws are tightening. Right now the...