Free Republic

Gun control advocates today said they consider a ban on high capacity ammunition clips to be the "cornerstone" of any gun control package and the Senate's failure to include the legislation could jeopardize their support.

I recently applied for a Illinois state mandated FOID (Firearm owners Identification) card. The law as written states that the card must be issued or declined for cause within 30 days of your $10.00 fee check being cashed. Well, to begin with, it took them 2 1/2 weeks to cash the check. Now 12 weeks after that still no card or notification. I have contacted my state rep (a Republican) for what good it will do and also notified the NRA of the situation. I know they have a high number of apps to deal with but the law is...

There are many new and well used "code words" floating around these days, as well as the not-so-new ones. Let's decipher some of them.... "Common Sense": This term, especially when spoken by a politician, indicates an attempt to sway your personal opinion using emotion and carefully selected events to prove a predetermined outcome. These events when presented as a group offer "proof" to justify the personal beliefs or prejudices of the presenter. "Gun Show Loophole": This term has been bandied about by politicians, journalists, and many who think that the average citizen is not capable of being responsible for their...

I have some questions I would like to ask and get a general idea of the thoughts of my fellow Freepers Last night I am watching O’Reilly – please no comments on why. It’s a long story. Anyway, he is talking to Beckel about his unConstitutional law he would like to see the government implement. As a side note, how does he reconcile in his mind when he states the government can’t protect people and then in the next breath wants the government to enact another law to make it more powerful. Anyway, Beckel makes a statement that people living...

Overreach: The gun control bill lets doctors put your name in the national criminal background check system without telling you. Can the government say you're crazy and take your guns? It's already happening. The road to deeper gun control seems like another road paved with good intentions. Since many recent mass shootings have involved shooters with varying degrees of mental impairment, the desire to keep guns out of the genuinely mentally ill seems to be a worthy goal. Yet it is being exploited with definitions so vague and undefined, and with controls so lax, as to become not a means...

The purpose of the Second Amendment is to arm people in order to prevent future tyranny. They need the tools to do this. The term "Well Regulated" in the Second Amendment meant "Well Manned and Equipped " in 1791 as was determined in the 1939 United States v. Miller case after referencing the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The concept of Government Regulation, as we understand it today, did not exist at the time. United States v. Miller also determined that the term "Arms" refers to "Ordinary Military Weapons" (not crew operated). American Citizens have the right to Keep and Bear,...

Bat Man: A Chicago store owner beats off two armed thugs with a baseball bat as Missouri illegally shares concealed carry records with feds and New York matches private health records with gun permits to take firearms. President Obama, who campaigns for gun control between concerts at the White House and golf outings with Tiger Woods, once famously used the metaphor that in politics if they bring a knife to a fight, you bring a gun. On Tuesday, in the gun-controlled murder capital of Chicago, the president's hometown, store owner Luis Quizhpe, an Ecuadorean immigrant, had no gun, but he...

Communist regimes always disarm the people. They must do this in order to crush the people under their evil schemes. And, they lie about it, about what they’re doing and why, but the end result is always the same—millions of disarmed dead people. If you think it can’t happen here, then you’re only fooling yourself. If we have a God-given right to life and liberty, and we do, then it stands that we also have a God-given right to defend our lives and liberty against those who would try to take them from us. Our Founding Fathers knew this, and...

I'm presently looking to buy a WWII German Luger. Having just moved to the state of Illinois, I checked into the specific laws pertaining to the purchase and ownership of firearms. Of the many Draconian gun laws in this state there is one that is particularly onerous....Obtaining a FOID(Firearm Owners Identification) card. The law that the legislature passed states that the card must be either issued or declined within 30 days of receipt of application. The FOID sight states within 30 days of your application fee of $10.00 being cashed. An immportant distinction being that it took them 2 weeks...

Subbing for mylife...

A recent notice from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reveals that the agency intends to acquire an online database capable of bringing up many of an individual’s personal characteristics and connections with just a few keystrokes. On March 28 the federal law enforcement organization, which is a branch of the US Department of Justice, filed a solicitation notice for a “massive online data repository system” for its Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information. The solicitation is hosted on the Federal Business Opportunities website, where vendors and developers can offer their services to the government in a competitive reverse...

We are currently mired in a frantic debate about the rights of gun owners. One example should suffice to prove that the debate has become hysterical: Second Amendment supporters, one prominent but less than articulate member of Congress alleges, have become “enablers of mass murder.” Special animus has been directed against so-called assault rifles. These are semi-automatic, not automatic weapons—the latter have been illegal under federal law since the 1930s—because they require a trigger pull for every round fired. Some semi-automatic firearms, to be sure, can be fitted with large-capacity magazines. But what inspires the ire of gun control advocates...

In an extreme survival situation where the appropriate amount of ammunition for the type of firearm you’re carrying can’t necessarily be guaranteed, what would you do? Carry multiple types of firearms to increase your chances of coming across ammo you can use? You could do that, or you could have an adapter system that comes in a handy pouch that allows one 12-gauge shotgun to take 11 different types of ammunition. The creator of Gear Up’s X Caliber Shotgun Gauge Adapter System, Tim Ralston, told TheBlaze it’s like carrying 11 guns in one.

McCain and Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) are at the top of a list of Republicans considered most likely to sign on to legislation expanding background checks after talks with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) stalled earlier this month.

Subbing for mylife...

The president of one of the nation's oldest gun manufacturers closed down his Connecticut factory Thursday morning and bused 400 of his workers to the state Capitol so they could personally urge lawmakers not to pass gun control legislation that they say could risk their livelihoods.

Some Kansas lawmakers want to stay a step ahead of any new federal gun laws or regulations by reintroducing a bill that would exempt some Kansas-built firearms and accessories from any federal regulation. House Bill 2199, known as the Second Amendment Protection Act, is seen by some as a declaration of states' rights. It is seen by others, including a Wichita firearms manufacturer, as politics as usual.

Any remaining doubt about where the gun lobby may be headed after the Newtown Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting seems over now. NRA leaders have endorsed America’s most profitable gunmaking CEO, whose best-selling product is the same AR-15 rifle used by Adam Lanza inside the Sandy Hook school, to join the NRA’s governing board. At the same time, NRA leaders are reaching beyond even Republicans to embrace Glenn Beck, who is now a self-described anti-GOP-establishment conservative. This year, George Kollitides II, the chief executive officer of Freedom Group, America’s largest and most profitable consortium of gun manufacturing companies, has been...

LAWRENCE, Mass. (AP) — Police say a dog searching for a gun in a snowbank accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw, firing the weapon. No humans —or dogs — were hurt. The episode started at about 2 a.m. Sunday when an officer on patrol heard three gunshots.

What is the actual history and purpose of the Second Amendment? A growing number of gun control advocates insist that this key constitutional provision was not intended to protect an individual right of firearms ownership, but instead was intended to provide for the regulation of a government-controlled militia. People who espouse that view generally insist that the role of the militia is now carried out by the National Guard, or even by the police -- and that the "right of the people" referred to in the Second Amendment has nothing to do with private firearms ownership.