Free Republic

At the beginning of the year, this column noted sadly that some Connecticut gun owners had spent the waning days of 2013 "rushing," "scrambling," and enduring long lines in the bitter cold, to register their so-called "assault weapons" and "high capacity" magazines (defined by gun ban zealots as having a capacity of 11 or more rounds), in compliance with the state law requiring their registration by the end of the year. Despite the inescapable evidence that the purpose of registration is to enable confiscation, thousands of gun owners submitted to this intolerable act of governmental domination.

Pratt & Whitney said Monday it is cooperating with authorities after federal agents arrested a former employee for trying to ship documents to Iran related to the U.S. military's Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. The East Hartford defense contractor, the sole manufacturer of the aircraft's engine, declined to comment on how Mozaffar Khazaee, 59, slipped thousands of pages of documents, diagrams, blueprints and technical manuals out the door before he was laid off in August along with hundreds of other employees. Federal authorities arrested Khazaee at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Thursday before he could board a plane...

National Republican chairman Reince Priebus is coming to Connecticut to raise money this week and the tea party will be there to greet him. The activists will gather Thursday night outside the Owl Shop in New Haven, where GOP insiders will raise money over cigars and cocktails. (The minimum individual contribution is $125.)

A New York Post columnist's characterization of the Newtown shooting as a "little convenient massacre" is hideously insensitive. Is Fredric Dicker daft? It is beyond unacceptable to use the word "convenient" to described the brutal killing of 20 children and six female educators.

...[S]ome Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate said they'd favor the concept of a federal law requiring even Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Now, the state's Catholic bishops are objecting. ...[They] issued a statement expressing their dismay after all five Democratic candidates said during Sunday's "Face the State" debate that they would support legislation forcing Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. "If it is their [the candidates'] position that our hospitals should be forced by law or regulations to provide abortions in spite of our teaching, it is unfortunate to note their readiness to violate religious liberty"... Here are some excerpts of...

The customers at a Connecticut Starbucks are on their third day of a record-breaking pay-it-forward spree as more than 1,000 customers have cheerfully agreed to pay for the customers behind them. Today's run smashed the record the store set Thursday at closing when a total of 783 people paid it forward. "Nobody has broken it (the chain) yet," said Joshua, manager of the Starbucks store in Newington, Conn. Joshua said he is not permitted to release his last name according to company policy.

Former Attorney General and current U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal is calling on United Parcel Service to issue refunds to customers whose gifts did not arrive in time for Christmas. “I am disappointed to learn that so many consumers in Connecticut and across the country made purchases this holiday season expecting their gifts to arrive in time for Christmas, but instead were left empty-handed,” the Democratic senator from Connecticut said in a press release.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Tuesday spoke on the Senate floor of the shooting death of Erika Robinson, calling again for Congress to pass laws that would prevent “such violence.”

HARTFORD — The Hartford archdiocese's new archbishop, the Most Rev. Leonard Paul Blair, cited three M's — memory, mission and ministry — as guiding principles while speaking to the more than 2,000 worshippers who attended his Mass of Installation on Monday afternoon at the Cathedral of St. Joseph.

Photo by Oleg Volk In what might appear to be a counter-intuitive move, Wilson Arms plans to move its barrel production facility from Wisconsin to Connecticut. But, the company already has operations in Connecticut, and this move will consolidate operations. The company owner, Hugo Vivero, purchased the company from the Wilson family six years ago. Wilson Arms was founded in New Haven, Connecticut in 1954, when firearms regulation and legislation were much more sane and reasonable. The acquisition of the former Badger Defense Company, located in Wisconsin, occurred in 2012, so what is happening is that a Connecticut based company...

In the dry, neutral language used in these types of missives, the just-released official report on the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School sidesteps any determination of causality or assignment of blame. Even though the shooter, Adam Lanza, had “significant mental health issues that affected his ability to live a normal life,” and even though he had “familiarity with and access to firearms and ammunition and an obsession with mass murders,” the report says that there was no evidence that he intended to commit such a crime himself. Official reports may not draw conclusions, but we can.

Just got back from victory party. In DEM Conn., in a DEM city in the inner-city (a welfare ward largely consisting of 3-family houses) GOP Don Naples upsets DEM incumbent Freeman ... so we have a new alderman. Naples 194 Freeman 171 If we can win here ... there is hope for America.

Zip guns are dangerous and shockingly easy to make, according to police. One New Haven resident has been making them and has been doing it for a while. These homemade weapons were powerful enough to kill. New Haven police found a zip gun on one of three juveniles arrested in a pair of East Rock robberies over the weekend. Detectives later arrested a fourth teen on Mountain Ridge Terrace. The juvenile, whose name is not being released due to his age, was accused of making and selling up to a dozen different fully functioning zip guns for $200 apiece. According...

Between the years of 1692 and 1693 more than 25 people were accused of being witches and were either executed or died in prison in the area around Salem Massachusetts. Nearly all of the accused and condemned had little more evidence against them than some other person pointing at them and yelling “WITCH!!” One might think that some 300 plus years down the line we might have evolved over such knee jerk reactions and rushes to judgment but when it comes to gun owners that is often not the case. In particular, a person can request a protective order in...

Governor Dannel Malloy does not understand a law pertaining to “large capacity magazines” that he demanded, promoted and signed, Connecticut Citizens Defense League documented yesterday following statements the governor made on a local radio program. Malloy’s “legal” response to a caller on Milford’s “Chaz & AJ in the Morning” show was dangerously off-base, CCDL charged. Asked if it would be legal to carry two 14-round magazines limited to 10 rounds in each one, the governor’s advice could subject anyone heeding it to prosecution.“First of all what you have to do is disclose,” Malloy told the caller. “There’s a way to...

National Day for Dignity and Respect pushes for immigration reform through portraits in New Haven NEW HAVEN >> When his daughter was just eight months old, Alejandro Gonzalez made the decision to leave Mexico. Gonzalez, who now lives in Connecticut, said he has not been able to go back since. That was in February 2002. “When I talk to her on the computer or the phone, it is like a piece of my heart is gone,” Gonzalez said. Recently, Gonzalez said he has lost two cousins to cancer and lost a grandfather, but was unable to say goodbye to any...

Investigators have found indications that the woman who led authorities on a chase from the White House to the Capitol before she was shot to death by police thought that President Barack Obama was stalking her, law enforcement sources told NBC News. The sources said that the woman, Miriam Carey, had a history of mental health problems. The chase, on Thursday afternoon, stirred panic in the capital and briefly stopped the mechanisms of government. It happened two weeks after a man shot 12 people to death at the Washington Navy Yard. Members of the House and Senate, in a standoff...

As the clock wound toward a government shutdown late Monday night, U.S. Rep. John Larson took to the House floor. In a passionate screed, a red-faced Larson implored his fellow members to engage in talks to avoid a shutdown.

Paul Pasqualoni has been fired as UConn football coach, and associate head coach and offensive line head coach George DeLeone has been relived of his duites, the school announced in a press release at about 10 a.m. Monday morning. The Courant was the first to report the news through two sources.

A day after President Barack Obama visited the Washington Naval Yard, site of the nation's latest mass shooting, local and federal officials called on citizens across the country to form a coalition large enough to battle the powerful gun lobby. At a roundtable discussion at the Margaret Morton Government Center in Bridgeport on Monday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he and other senators will only be able to take on the gun lobby and pass stronger gun laws if people throughout the nation speak up. "What makes the NRA strong is that they can mobilize tens of thousands of...