Free Republic

'I didn't want to shoot anybody' A CREST HILL MAN WAS PREPARED FOR 35 YEARS FOR A DAY HE HOPED WOULD NEVER COME. October 10, 2008 From Staff Reports CREST HILL -- The same six bullets sat in the cylinder of the man's .38 special for 35 years until he fired four of them at someone who crashed through his bedroom window Wednesday. "I often wondered if I could pick it up and pull the trigger," the shaken and emotional man said Thursday morning, hours after he gunned down an intruder in his basement apartment. The apparent housebreaker, 34-year-old Demetrious...

A police weapons specialist who shot himself in the hand is suing the PSNI. Peter Woods, 50, was dismantling a gun at a police facility in February last year when the accident happened. It is understood that he removed the magazine from a pistol, but a bullet in the chamber fired into his hand. He recovered from his injury. Lawyers for Mr Woods claimed in the High Court that proper safety procedures were not in place, and ammunition may have been faulty. -cut- His legal team is arguing that a proper risk assessment was not carried out and a second...

INDUSTRY, Pa. - A western Pennsylvania man who says he wore a gun and carried a Bible outside a Barack Obama rally to prove a point in August will have his day in court. Police have charged 50-year-old John Noble, of Industry, Beaver County, with disorderly conduct and disrupting a meeting. But Noble says he did nothing wrong by showing "Sen. Obama that Pennsylvanians do, in fact 'cling to their guns and religion.'"

Police find stolen pair, 95 others WEST BOYLSTON, MA — An investigation into the whereabouts of two handguns missing from Wayne’s Weaponry Inc. at 251 Laurel St. resulted in one arrest and the seizure of 97 firearms and about 10,000 rounds of ammunition at a single-family home Thursday night. James A. Mitchener, 56, of 524 Prospect St., was arrested on five counts of larceny of a firearm, receiving stolen firearms, storing firearms without trigger locks and misleading a police officer, according to police. He was held Thursday night on $25,000 cash bail. At his arraignment in Clinton District Court yesterday,...

The ongoing Nordyke case being heard in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has very favorable chances of getting the 2nd/RKBA "incorporated" under the 14th Amendment. This is the case that brings Heller out from just D.C. This case wpn't just be about California: it's a key step to 'locking in' the 2nd nationally. Some Law Enforcement associations - or at least their political leadership - will be opposing Incorporation of the 2nd Amendment. We suspect that isn't the position that most line officers, deputies and chiefs actually support. Thus, in support of the Nordyke appeal, we urgently need members...

Sheriff’s detectives say a Rosemark man held two thieves at gunpoint who tried to steal a utility trailer from his front yard yesterday. Detectives believe the suspects may also be responsible for stealing other utility trailers. About 11:30 yesterday morning, Steven Rutter, 57, who lives in the 8700 block of Rosemark Road in north Shelby County, heard a vehicle slow down in front of his house. Rutter saw a gray Dodge Ram pickup truck back into his front yard. Two men then began hooking up Rutter’s utility trailer to the pickup truck. Detectives say Rutter got his pistol and confronted...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Police said a homeowner shot in self-defense when armed suspects tried to rob him overnight. Shortly before 10:30 p.m. Monday, 67-year-old Douglas Dabbs pulled into his driveway on Tobylynn Drive and was getting out of his pickup truck when two armed men came up to him and tried to rob him. The two men were identified as Nibeyu Demissew Yosef and Jermichael Jerome Burgy. Armed with BB guns the two men demanded money from Dabbs. Dabbs said he reached into the console of his truck, retrieved a handgun that fires .410 shotgun rounds and opened fire on...

My name is Butch Housman. Months ago I wrote a letter to the editor of this newspaper. As a result, Federal Agent Thomas Chittum asked to move the trial of my friends Leonard and Tom Elliott to Frankfort and cited my letter as cause, claiming I had “polluted the jury pool.” I was named specifically before the court and was criticized for questioning both the mission of his agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, and in particular his case against the Bacon Creek Gun Shop. I didn’t realize I was such an influential scribe. In light of...

New York Criminal Defense Law Firm, Tilem & Campbell, scored another major victory in a New York gun case when it won a complete dismissal of all charges in a Bronx County case yesterday. The original charges included Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree and Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Fourth Degree. The Defendant faced a minimum sentence of 3 and 1/2 years in prison on the Second Degree charge which is a class "C" violent felony. The case was won using a little known Federal Defense that provides a defense to gun charges in...

Ray Schoenke, president of fake gun group American Hunters and Shooters Association (ASHA), received a cold reception from Ohioans during a swing through the state to campaign for former Joyce Foundation board member Barack Obama, and judging by a follow-up press release, he is still feeling the sting. On Wednesday, September 17, Buckeye Firearms Association published a story detailing how ASHA and the AFL-CIO labor union had teamed up to try and convince rural gun owners (you know, the ones who Obama says are bitterly clinging to their guns) to prostitute the Second Amendment for a paycheck. That same day,...

It is often said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The phrase definitely applies to Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and the 2004 Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry. For most of the 2004 campaign, the Kerry campaign was winning on the gun issue by making it a non-issue. Kerry was doing well, having lulled to sleep the giant pro-gun voting block. And then came September. The Swift Vets had Kerry struggling in the polls, and in a widely-publicized rescue move, former Clintonistas Paul Begala, James Carville, Mike McCurry, Lanny Davis and Joe...

ATLANTA - Oconee County sheriff's deputies are hard-pressed to decide whether they're dealing with a criminal when they get a call that someone is carrying a concealed weapon where they shouldn't be, Sheriff Scott Berry said Tuesday. The state's ban on firearms at public gatherings is too ambiguous, Berry told a panel of state senators conducting a wholesale review of the state's gun laws. Places of worship, sporting and political events, publicly owned buildings and places the public may gather currently are off-limits to concealed weapons carriers. But Berry said the situations his deputies encounter often straddle the line between...

The man arrested near Sen. Barack Obama's home with a gun in his car has been charged with trespassing and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, police said.

US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama faces a tough battle in Ohio, where pro-second amendment voters fear their rights are being threatened. (Reuters: Jim Young, file photo) Audio: Ohio gun trade strong despite US economic upheaval The US state of Ohio has predicted the outcome of nearly every presidential election in the last century. And with just 44 days until the election, Ohio remains the ultimate bellwether when it comes to American politics. Opinion polls show the race in Ohio is very close, with some putting Republican John McCain in the lead and others showing Democrat Barack Obama out...

Attempts to turn Solomon Islands into a gun-free society has had an unintended deadly side effect. It's lead in part, to an increase in the number of fatal crocodile attacks. Guns were banned on Solomon Islands following racial tensions and the arrival in 2003 of the Australian lead Regional Assistance Mission, RAMSI. Solomon Islands Acting Police Commissioner, Peter Marshall, has told Radio Australia at least six people have been killed by crocodiles in the past 18 months. "We have various reports from around the provinces in Solomon Islands... of crocodiles entering into locations where fishermen are present or where children...

The media is reporting the landmark Ohioans For Concealed Carry v. Clyde case as a simple matter of the Ohio Supreme Court overturning Clyde's ban on firearms in their parks, but the case goes much deeper than that. This case upheld statewide preemption of gun laws, giving teeth to Sec. 9.68 of the Ohio Revised Code which states: Sec. 9.68. (A) The individual right to keep and bear arms, being a fundamental individual right that predates the United States Constitution and Ohio Constitution, and being a constitutionally protected right in every part of Ohio, the general assembly finds the need...

A federal judge decided Tuesday that Jim’s Gun Jobbery of Fayetteville and the Jim’s store in Wilmington can keep their licenses to sell firearms. Jim’s Gun Jobbery in Fayetteville and Jim’s Pawn & Gun in Wilmington sometimes violated regulations requiring dealers to closely track their inventory, U.S. District Judge Malcolm J. Howard said in his ruling. But he decided the violations were unintentional and made up only a tiny percentage of the stores’ sales since Jim Faircloth went into business in 1977. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has been trying since 2005 to revoke the licenses of Jim’s,...

The City of Cleveland has lost in their bid to keep a firearm confiscated from a man who was acquitted of all charges stemming from an April 2007 incident. On April 27, 2007, Antonio Fulton was charged with using weapons while intoxicated, failure to secure a dangerous ordnance, and endangering children. His handgun was confiscated. At his trial, Fulton was acquitted of the charges. Yet, the City refused to return his handgun. Fulton petitioned the Municipal Court to return the firearm, but the Court refused. Fulton appealed the ruling to the Eight Appellate District. Today, the Appellate Court ruled in...

Gun control has suddenly emerged as the toxic issue of the 2008 presidential campaign, endangering Barack Obama's appeal among Democratic blue-collar and labor union households. The freshman Illinois senator has a long record of favoring gun bans in Chicago and Washington, D.C., and a raft of other gun control bills that are anathema to gun owners, hunters and sportsmen alike. He insists now he supports Second Amendment gun rights to keep and bear arms that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld when it struck down the D.C. gun ban in June. But he refused to join 77 of his colleagues who...

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- A man shot and killed a 24-year-old intruder who apparently tried to rob a Vero Beach home Thursday morning, sheriff’s deputies said. Indian River County Sheriff’s Office detectives said Thomas Thompson was armed with a knife when he broke into the home on 47th Avenue and woke up Francis Hornsby. She screamed, alerting sons Robert, also known as Paris, 20, and Austin, 19. “Someone came through our window, had a knife -- they’re in my mom’s room standing over her bed,” Austin Hornsby told WPBF News 25’s Terri Parker. “I chased him out, tackled him midway...

Vindication of fundamental civil rights is not an "injury," and asking that the government be held liable for the cost of enforcing our civil rights laws is no "insult" ["Holding Up Taxpayers," editorial, Sept. 6]. --------cut-------------- Awarding successful civil rights lawyers below-market rates for taking such enormous risks would send the bar a terrible message: Ignore injustice, unless you can afford to fight it. Our requested rates are based on documented market realities, not on the government's wishes about what it would like to pay. I was shocked at The Post's suggestion that civil rights lawyers are somehow the lesser...

Police this morning shot and killed a man holding a gun to an 11-year-old child's head in near northeast Houston, a department spokesman said. Capt. Bruce Williams said two officers were patrolling a near northeast neighborhood just before 10 a.m. when they heard the child screaming at a small, two-story apartment complex in *** Williams could not say whether the child was a boy or a girl. The officers went to investigate and spotted the gunman,dragging the child. One of the officers, Christopher Sellers, an 11-year veteran, shot the man when he refused orders to disarm, Williams said. It was...

WASHINGTON - The ATF lost 76 weapons and hundreds of laptops over five years, the Justice Department reported Wednesday, blaming carelessness and sloppy record-keeping. ... "It is especially troubling that that ATF's rate of loss for weapons was nearly double that of the FBI and DEA, and that ATF did not even know whether most of its lost, stolen, or missing laptop computers contained sensitive or classified information," he added. ... Compared to weapons loss rates for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, the ATF misplaced almost twice as many guns. ... The Justice Department's report can be found at:...

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's hopes for carrying Montana have diminished over the past few months, and Montanans say it comes down to one word: guns. "In Montana, we like our guns. We like big guns. We like little guns. We like shotguns. We like pistols. Most of us own two or three guns. Gun control is hitting what you shoot at," the state's Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer told the New York Times in April. When asked why he thought the Democratic nominee would not win his state, he replied, "guns."

Today Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, joined by members of the Council of the District of Columbia and Acting Attorney General Peter J. Nickles introduced new emergency and temporary legislation to further amend the District’s firearms laws. “This new legislation is the second step in the process to do all that we can to minimize handgun violence in the District,” said Mayor Fenty. “These actions will continue to protect our citizens from gun violence while respecting the Second Amendment.” “We believe that any legitimate concerns by Congress on District gun laws should satisfied by the new laws,” said Acting Attorney General...

Ohioans For Concealed Carry plans to hold a demonstration walk Sept. 20 in Northwood in protest of what the organization says was poor treatment of one of its members by city police. The walk is scheduled for noon at Central Park. The group claims one of its members, Edwin Farbrother, was harassed by police officers July 5 while he was at a Woodville Road ice cream shop with his 18-year-old daughter. Police Chief Thomas Cairl was at the shop at the time with his family and called on-duty officers when he saw Mr. Farbrother wearing a holstered weapon the chief...

SARAH PALIN learned to call the shots at an early age — she got to grips with a gun at eight and made her first kill at ten. The moose-hunting mum-of-five from Alaska grew up shooting animals and skinning them on the spot before hauling the meat home for the family freezer. Sarah’s dad Chuck Heath shot a grizzly bear three years ago and its skin adorns a sofa in Sarah’s office. Now she is in the political bear pit after accepting the Republican Vice-Presidential nomination. Chuck told The Sun: “Sarah was always very determined. Whatever she lacked in skill...

AUGUSTA, Ga. --- Investigators tell News 12 an 18-year-old with a butcher knife was trying to get into a house on the 14 hundred block of Wrightsboro Road. Deputies say the homeowner shot the intruder in the left leg with a 12gauge shotgun. The teen is recovering at MCG. At this time no charges have been filed.

When is "innocent until proven guilty" a controversial concept? When is an Ohio law designed to protect a homeowner protecting themselves from an intruder interpreted a license for drug dealers to murder one another? And when are self-defense advocates and rank-and-file cops described as saying it's ok to shoot first and ask questions later? When you are a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer or a bureaucrat with the Ohio Prosecutors' Association or Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Reginald Fields story entitled "Innocent before guilty, new self-defense law sides with homeowners protecting their 'castles'": "A homeowner...

“A person does not have the right under the Second Amendment, or under any other provision of the Constitution, to possess a machinegun. A person does not have a right, under the Second Amendment, or under any other provision of the Constitution, to possess a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches that the person has not registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.” (Instructions to the jury in U.S. v. Gilbert) In the months since the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, there have been over a dozen rulings by judges...

A would be burglar gets more than he bargains for while breaking into a West Jackson home. The homeowner sent the burglar to the hospital. It happened in the 600 block of Hillsdale Drive off Clinton Boulevard. A homeowner on Hillsdale Drive was still in bed around 9:00 a.m. when a burglar woke him from his sleep. "Once he heard Mr. Moore attempt to break into the home he retrieved a weapon and fired a shot striking Mr. Moore," said Jackson Police Lt. Jeffery Scott. Eighteen year old Lorenzo Moore was shot once in the arm. He fled the home...

CINCINNATI -- Concealed weapons permit holders can now keep a gun hidden in a car, as long as they're carrying it in a secure holster -- one of several changes to Ohio's conceal carry law taking effect Monday. The law previously required the gun to be in plain sight. Permit holders also may bring a gun onto school grounds, as long as the gun owner is in a car picking up or dropping off a child. Law enforcement officials said the changes are common sense. "The more law-abiding people that have guns, the better off we are," said Hamilton County...

Mark Marchiafava says he’s earned the right to wear his .357-caliber Magnum pistol in a hip holster in Gonzales. And, he says at a local mall, city residents paid him to demonstrate that right. “I wish the taxpayers of Gonzales knew just how much money it is,” the 55-year-old Marchiafava adds. In January 2006, the longtime Baton Rouge resident was at the same mall, wearing the same pistol, when a Gonzales police officer asked him why he was carrying a gun. Marchiafava says he told the officer that non-felons can legally carry firearms that are not concealed. That exchange led...

The Henry County Sheriff’s Office is looking for a man who attempted to rob Harder’s Pharmacy in Bassett on Saturday morning. A white male, with his face partially covered, entered the store on Fairystone Park Highway at about 10 a.m. and demanded that the pharmacist give him all the OxyContin and pain pills in the store, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office. The pharmacist pulled a handgun and the would-be robber ran out of the store and got into the passenger seat of a vehicle parked across the street, authorities said. The driver then pulled out and...

The Warren Tribune-Chronicle is reporting that a Warren city councilman held a bloody trespasser at gunpoint outside his home late Saturday night until Warren and Howland police arrived. From the story: Bob Dean, D-at large, said he was getting ready to go to a party Saturday night when he noticed someone near the shed in his back yard at 4110 Sunnybrook Drive S.E. at 11:43 p.m. Thinking it might be connected to the rash of shed break-ins in the city, Dean said he grabbed his gun, for which he has a conceal carry permit, "and told him in graphic language...

MUNCIE, Ind. -- A Muncie man whose home was burglarized Monday held a would-be robber at gunpoint after waiting in the dark for two hours to see if the burglars would return, police said. Michael Angel returned home Monday evening to find his back door open and several items missing from his home, 6News' Jennifer Carmack reported. He said he called police to make a report and then talked to neighbors, who said they'd seen a few people and a black pickup truck near his home that day. Angel said he wanted to see if the burglars would come back,...

A Pennsylvania man was injured in an accident in Westampton Tuesday and then charged with unlawful possession of a loaded handgun, police said. According to investigators, Gary Jones, 30, of Glenside, Pa. was the driver of a vehicle that collided with another car yesterday afternoon at the intersection of Springside and Valley Farm Roads. Following the 4:21 p.m. accident, officers located a 10 mm handgun in the console of Jones car, police said. The gun was loaded with hollow-point bullets, police said. Jones had a permit to carry the weapon in Pennsylvania, but New Jersey law does not permit him...

EAST STROUDSBURG - It's a night time shopper's nightmare. You buy groceries, go to your car, and someone tries to rob you at gunpoint. Police say Joshua Eastman, 28, of East Stroudsburg was unloading groceries at his car shortly before 12:45 a.m. today when Reneau Jean Jacques, 17, of 77 Symphony Circle, East Stroudsburg, pointed a handgun at him and demanded that he hand over his money. Wal-Mart shopper says, 'It's not safe in East Stroudsburg any more.' More than 10,000 Monroe residents permitted to carry concealed gun Pocono Thursday: Shootout at Wal-Mart; Poconos Crime Tracker Eastman looked around for...

<p>I spent the morning trying to convince a wet-behind-the-ears local county prosecutor that this was a major crock of shit . . . despite patiently trying to explain the law and logic to her, I got nowhere.</p> <p>I figured I'd post this: 1) to see your reactions; and 2) because you guys think I'm some crazy liberal . . . btw, I was asked by members of this poor woman's church to intervene because she's on a fixed income (she's raising two of her grandkids), couldn't afford to hire an attorney, and it had been suggested at her initial appearance that she should waive her rights, proceed without counsel, and plead.</p>

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Confronted with a pistol and bound with duct tape, the owner of a northwest Harris County store decided not to quietly submit and hope his attacker would show mercy. The businessman worked himself free, got his own gun and killed the robber in a shootout, sheriff's deputies said. The incident happened about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday when a man walked into the cellular phone store in the 12000 block of Veterans Memorial Drive near Antoine, pulled out a gun and tied up the owner, sheriff's detectives said. "He (the robber) was in the process of trying to disable the surveillance equipment...

Was it self defense, or a danger to the community? It's a question many residents in the Faubourg St. John area are now asking after a recent shooting left bullet casings up and down their neighborhood block. Video: Watch the Story On Sunday, around 10:30 p.m., New Orleans Police Department officers say two hooded men robbed an employee of the Soprano's Meat Market at gun point at 2703 Ursulines Avenue. Store owner and brother of the employee, Rick Abraham, says surveillance video captured the entire incident. "They robbed him, beat him with the gun, threw him on the floor, and...

DEPARTMENT OF STATE 22 CFR Parts 122 and 129 [Public Notice 6246] RIN 1400-AC50 Amendment to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations: Registration Fee Change AGENCY: Department of State. ACTION: Proposed rule. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The Department of State is proposing to amend the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) by increasing the registration fees, changing the registration renewal period, and making other minor administrative changes. DATES: Effective Date: The Department of State will accept comments on this proposed rule until August 27, 2008. ADDRESSES: Interested parties may submit comments within 30 days of the date of publication by any of...

Attention Firearm and Ammunition Manufacturers and Exporters! The State Department has proposed raising the annual ITAR registration fee to $2,250. If you have *any* export activity, the minimum fee will increase to $2,750. If you apply to export items more than 10 times, the fee will be $2,750, plus $250 per export application over 10. In the final coup d' grace, State is proposing that the annual registration fee equal 3% of the total annual value of a company's export. If Dillon Aero exported 10 M134's and the export totalled $1.3M, the annual registration fee for the following year would...

MARTINSBURG, WV - A pro-gun group wants to do away with a Martinsburg law that bans guns in city buildings, but city officials intend to keep the rule in place. As a gun owner and owner of Shep's Sporting Goods store in Martinsburg, Brad Sheppard believes in the right to bear arms. "If a person has a right to carry a gun for their protection, then they should be allowed to do so," he said. On the other hand, he also understands Martinsburg's ordinance that says people can't carry a firearm or other deadly weapon into a building owned, leased,...

Ron Gibson carries a semi-automatic pistol on his hip for anyone to see, and insists he's not out to intimidate. When he goes to bed, the .45 caliber firearm is nearby and loaded. "Just because I'm carrying a gun, I shouldn't be viewed as a threat. I don't bring any attention to it whatsoever," he said. Gibson is among about three dozen members of a gun rights group who will "pack" a picnic with their families Saturday afternoon in Warren. They are part of a growing movement of advocates promoting the Second Amendment and the open carrying of handguns. The...

A licensed gunmaker who has reported retaliatory attacks on his work by federal agents upset over his testimony on behalf of a man sent to prison for having a broken gun has ordered the government to return one of his projects. "You have seized company property without any cause or court order to date. The company firmly demands the return of the firearm in question," Len Savage told John Spencer and other officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in a letter, a copy of which was sent to WND and also later posted online at the...

<p>HOUSTON – Houston Police are investigating a shooting where a homeowner fought back and shot a suspected burglar. Investigators say, two men broke into a home on Pecan villas in southeast Houston.</p>

Questions from aldermen about proposed amendments to the City's weapons ordinance led to postponement of the vote to amend the ordinance, scheduled for the July 28 City Council meeting, until at least the Aug. 11 meeting. The Council directed the City's law department to draft an ordinance that would comply with the recent U.S. Supreme Court Decision Heller v. District of Columbia, which held that Washington, D.C.'s ban on the private possession of handguns was unconstitutional. Evanston's present weapons ordinance similarly bans the possession of handguns in the City by civilians, with certain exceptions, such as antique guns and starter...

As the District prepares to fight double-barreled attempts to loosen its gun-control laws, some of the city's gun rights pioneers have done what folks in Washington do best — they have formed a lobbying group. About a dozen residents have pledged their support to Capital Gun Owners, a new D.C.-based gun advocacy and education group headed by Northwest resident Amy McVey. "We're at a point where we're feeling our way here," said Mrs. McVey, who was the first D.C. resident to register a handgun after the District's 32-year-old ban on handguns was struck down by the Supreme Court in June....