Free Republic

Numerous people have criticized homeowners  for having a gun in their hand or on their person when answering a door.   I have always maintained that it is only prudent to do so.   Home security systems can be very useful, of course.   A standoff barrier, such as my old friend, Tex Ferguson, the highly decorated combat vet and intelligence operative used, works very well, as do surveillance cameras.  Not everyone has such a system in place, or working, all the time.   In any case, surveillance and standoff systems work best when backed up by armed force.  I have reported numerous...

PAW PAW, Mich. -- A truck driver whose rig snagged a man in his wheelchair and unknowingly pushed him at speeds up to 50 mph for miles will not face any criminal charges, authorities said. Van Buren County prosecutor Juris Kaps said investigators determined the semi accidentally hit the wheelchair, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported Tuesday. Ben Carpenter, 21, of was attempting to pass in front of the truck June. 6 when the light at an intersection turned green and the 52-year-old driver, who was not identified, started to move. The wheelchair turned forward and its handles got lodged in the...

Windows Vista won't have a backdoor that could be used by police forces to get into encrypted files, Microsoft has stressed. In February, a BBC News story suggested that the British government was in discussions with Microsoft over backdoor access to the operating system. A backdoor is a method of bypassing normal authentication to gain access to a computer without to the PC user knowing. But Microsoft has now quelled the suggestion that law enforcement might get such access. "Microsoft has not and will not put 'backdoors' into Windows," a company representative said in a statement sent via e-mail. The...