Free Republic

Decrying estimates that “scores of thousands of Connecticut residents failed to register their military-style assault weapons with state police by Dec. 31,” The Hartford Courant published an editorial Friday declaring “State Can't Let Gun Scofflaws Off Hook. Aware that “willful noncompliance ... is doubtless a major issue,” The Courant floated the wishful thinking “that many gun owners are unaware of their obligation to register military-style assault weapons and would do so if given another chance.“But the bottom line is that the state must try to enforce the law,” The Courant concluded, calling on the state to use the “background check...

Should Connecticut make it legal for terminally ill patients to end their lives? Advocates say that a peaceful death with the help of a doctor is preferable to a painful one from a terminal illness or an illegal one. Last year’s bill on this issue resulted in the first legislative public hearing on the topic, according to CT News Junkie, but never passed out of the Public Health Committee. Oregon and Washington have laws allowing assisted suicide. But proposals for a similar law here have faced opposition from doctors in the state, from Catholic archdioceses and from disability advocates. What’s...

My Second Open Letter to Mike Lawlor -- On "Nightcrawlers" and Treason Played for Laughs. We've already established that you are willing to sell out your country. Now we're just haggling about the price. MBV Note to Readers: In my first letter to Connecticut's own Felix Dzerzhinsky, Mike Lawlor, we explored the subject of that tyrannical collectivist's KGB file. The response to that missive was very gratifying, as well as rewarding in terms of further clues and offers of assistance. I hope you like this letter as much as you liked the first. From the Desk of Mike Vanderboegh A...

Hell-bent on arming opposition forces in Syria—despite strong evidence that they’re run by Islamic terrorists—John McCain displayed behavior unbecoming of a United States Senator during a recent meeting with Syrian Christian leaders touring Capitol Hill. The delegation of Syrian clergy came to Washington to raise awareness among lawmakers of the growing crisis among the region’s minority Christian community. Christians make up about 10% of the Syrian population and they are being targeted and ruthlessly murdered by radical elements of the rebel forces, according to the visiting church officials. They say the media and human rights groups in the west have...

The anti-gun jihadists of the Connecticut government, who boast that the state's ban of so-called "assault weapons" (recently upheld as "Constitutional" by a federal judge despite his admission that the banned firearms and magazines are "in common use," and thus deserving Second Amendment protection even under the narrowly written Heller decision) is now the most draconian in the nation, are not satisfied with mere compliance with every detail of the law. They demand abject, terrified worship of the law. This is illustrated by comments made in response to resident gun manufacturer Stag Arms' attempts to gain clarification from the Connecticut...

NOTE: The following letter was sent via email this morning to Michael Lawlor (Some biographical details here and here. Mr. Lawlor is Connecticut Governor Dannell Malloy's hatchet man on the current tyrannical enforcement of that state's Intolerable Act. I will send him an official hard copy via snail mail today. “You can either surrender the weapon to us, destroy the weapon, or sell it to a federal firearms licensee. After that date (January 1) that hasn’t been declared or register is banned and if you get caught, you’re going to get arrested." -- Michael Lawlor. Mike.Lawlor@ct.gov Mike Lawlor Under Secretary,...

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...