Free Republic

Please see the previous threads detailing Barack Obama's failed efforts in the 90th and 91st General Assemblies of the Illinois Legislature: Barack Obama's failed "accomplishments" in the 90th GA of the Illinois Legislature (1997-1998) Barack Obama learns to "get help" - and fails in the 91st GA of the Illinois Legislature (1999-2000) Barack Obama decided to spend his last two years in the Illinois Senate going after peoples guns. Its interesting how he was willing to do this, but thought it was okie dokie for his best bud Bill Ayers to have bombs and explosives. Anyways, here is a link...

The Obama campaign talks a lot about new ideas and expanding the political map, but in the swing state of Pennsylvania, which the campaign has focused on almost exclusively since the Democratic convention, old-school issues still rise to the fore. The latest example came Friday during a small political event at SCHOTT North America Inc., a glass factory in Duryea, Pa., where even a hand-picked crowd threw Barack Obama a curve ball. A woman in the crowd told Obama she had “heard a rumor” that he might be planning some sort of gun ban upon being elected president. Obama trotted...

Gun owners, beware. Hidden in Barak Obama's MTV style acceptance speech was a message that should send chills up the spines of everyone who values, not just the right to own a gun, but the very right of self-defense. Like most of Obama's carefully crafted statements, it sounds innocuous enough: "The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals." Who could be against keeping guns away from criminals, right?...

OMAHA, Neb. - A La Vista man claims he was beaten by Omaha Police has filed a complaint against the department and plans to hire an attorney. Darnell Birdine, 19, said it happened at Septemberfest Sunday night. Omaha police said they saw someone fire shots near 10th and Webster, which is near the Septemberfest midway. As they responded to that shots fired call, they decided to close the event for the night.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign just won't let the gun issue rest. Mr. Obama and his campaign surrogates continue to assure gun owners that he is on their side, and it appears to be paying off. John McCain only leads Mr. Obama among hunters by 14 percentage points, just about half the 27-point lead that President Bush held over John Kerry in 2004. If Mr. McCain had a similar lead, he would be ahead in most polls, particularly in many battle ground states. Yet, despite all the Democratic claims to the contrary, Mr. Obama is undoubtedly the most anti-gun candidate ever...

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, whose name has been said to be on the short list for the GOP vice presidential nomination, made a swing through Pennsylvania this weekend, including a stop at Westgate Mall in Bethlehem. Meanwhile, speculation swirled about how Democrat Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his vice presidential pick might influence the choice made by John McCain. Pennsylvania Avenue got to ask him a few questions in a phone interview...Q: You're here, in part to promote Sen. McCain's sportsmen group. How important an issue will gun rights be in PA? A: In Minnesota and Pennsylvania our...

Anti-gun hysterics have a new spokesman: Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. I had barely finished writing about anxiety disorders over guns, and "His Honor" opens his mouth and makes my case. Mayor Daley was reacting to the Supreme Court decision striking down the D.C. gun ban, and the likelihood that a similar challenge will soon come against the Chicago ban. Now, some of his rhetoric is the same tired old stuff we've heard before; he called the high court's ruling a "frightening decision" and predicted a "return to the days of the Wild West." The Mayor should be so lucky...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefly evacuated from her downtown Denver hotel on Saturday when a man carrying two hunting rifles and two pistols tried to check in to the hotel.

Joe Biden's long history of strident arrogance is coming back to haunt him. The elitist campaign that lamented the "bitter" citizens who "cling" to weapons and religion just brought on another pol cast from the same mold. Click link to view the videos and get the message out.

Democrats ‘Still Don’t Get It’ on Guns Wednesday, August 13, 2008 By Susan Jones, Senior Editor (CNSNews.com) - Beware of what the Democrats are saying about guns in their party platform, a Second Amendment group says. The draft 2008 Democratic National Platform includes the “Utopian fantasy that gun control laws will somehow make neighborhoods safer,” said the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. “While promising to preserve our Second Amendment rights, the party platform demonizes semiautomatic sport utility rifles and wants them banned, calls for anti-gun show legislation and proposes so-called ‘common-sense’ gun laws,” said CCRKBA...

SOUTH JORDAN — After nearly two months of discussions on South Jordan's proposed ordinance to ban toy weapons on public property, the City Council has unanimously voted to pass the ordinance. In a work session before Tuesday's council meeting, council members discussed the proposed ordinance. Mayor Kent Money said he was concerned that the public did not understand the purpose of the ordinance. "First, we are only talking about the use of these projectiles in public places," he explained. The ordinance had originally been worded to ban the use of toy weapons on public and private property. However, after a...

If there is a chief spokesman for the far left, it has to be MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. It is difficult to think of a talking head that is more fawned over by liberals. On his nightly cable television show, the #1 show on MSNBC, he "analyzes" the news and adds his own angry, leftist flavor. One of his segments is to name a "Worst Person in the World." People such as George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly and Robert Novak have made the list. Recently, he named Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia the "Worst Person" for his role in...

HARTFORD -- Using a unique state law, police in Connecticut have disarmed dozens of gun owners based on suspicions that they might harm themselves or others. The state's gun seizure law is considered the first and only law in the country that allows the confiscation of a gun before the owner commits an act of violence. Police and state prosecutors can obtain seizure warrants based on concerns about someone's intentions. State police and 53 police departments have seized more than 1,700 guns since the law took effect in October 1999, according to a new report to the legislature. There are...

A Virginia Tech employee shot himself in a room off the Cassell Coliseum arena on Saturday afternoon, officials said. Tech police responded to the incident at 2:15 p.m., and the man was flown to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, police Chief Wendell Flinchum said. Officials declined to identify the man, and his condition is unknown. Although officials said the shooting posed no threat to the campus community, Flinchum said police notified the public by e-mail using part of an alert system put in place after the April 16, 2007, shootings.

National, and even international, coverage of the shootings at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church turned late this week into a discussion into whether it's safe in America to be a liberal.

For the Brady Campaign, Violence Policy Center, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, U.N. gun-ban extremist Rebecca Peters and her globalist billionaire sugar-daddy George Soros, for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his horde of big-city politicians—in fact, for all those individuals and organizations who would harm or destroy our Second Amendment rights—Barack Obama’s mantra of “change” means their agenda will be harnessed to the total power of an aggressive, activist and radical federal government. “Change” means gun owners will be under siege like never before. Especially for NRA members who fought through the never-ending threats of the Clinton-Gore administration, the...

Democratic lawmakers and leaders are hoping to work out a compromise as early as this week with the National Rifle Association (NRA) on legislation to further loosen gun laws in the District of Columbia. Reps. John Tanner (D-Tenn.) and John Dingell (D-Mich.) are working with the gun-lobbying group to head off a discharge petition filed last week that would bypass committee to bring a D.C. gun bill directly to the floor. “Dingell and Tanner are going to negotiate a compromise with the NRA and then show it to the leadership,” said a Democratic aide. The NRA has threatened to make...

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey's Assembly has twice-approved legislation limiting people to buying one handgun per month, but the Senate has never followed suit. Now a state senator and urban mayors are vowing to push hard to get final approval for the legislation. "Handgun violence is on the rise, but taking guns off the streets will help to stop the senseless slaughter of our citizens," said Sen. Sandra Bolden Cunningham, D-Hudson. "It's common sense." New Jersey would join Virginia, Maryland and California as states that restrict people to buying one handgun per month. California was the last state to adopt...

Sen. Barack Obama claims there has been only a "shift in emphasis," not "wild shifts," in his political positions. Many already know the list: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, NAFTA, public financing of campaigns, abortion, gay marriage, Social Security taxes, the death penalty and negotiating with rogue nations.Possibly one of the more remarkable changes has been his position on guns. But despite Obama's recent concession on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" that there has been a "shift in emphasis" on various issues, on guns he held firm: "You mentioned the gun position. I've been talking about the Second Amendment being an...

Gun regulation is not a public health issue, according to more than 80% of some 2,000 respondents to a MedPage Today poll. When the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine decried the recent Supreme Court decision overturning the District of Columbia's handgun law, they did so claiming the issue is a matter of public health. Now doctors in the trenches have weighed in with their own views. The responses from physicians who are registered members of the site was remarkbly evenly divided. Just over half (52%) said Yes, that gun control is a public health issue. But for...

For the second year in a row, a Los Angeles assemblyman is pushing a bill that would create a handgun-ammunition licensing system for firearms dealers statewide. The bill would require dealers to purchase an annual license from the Department of Justice to sell more than 50 total rounds of handgun ammunition each month. These licenses would cost an estimated $50, according to the department.

William Greene would like to register his guns with the city of Chicago. So would Charles Wilson, Ronald Wallace, Alberto Ortega, J. Anthony Clark, Nashaat Mhanna, Thomas Scileppi and Darrell Powell. And for the life of me, I don't really understand why we shouldn't let them. Each of the eight men appeared before a city hearing officer Tuesday to argue that the Chicago Police Department erred in rejecting their efforts to register -- or in many cases re-register -- their firearms. I was in attendance mostly by accident, thinking I'd be seeing cases brought under the city's handgun ban ordinance....

The Supreme Court may have confirmed that Americans have the right to own guns for protection, but the gun debate is hardly over. The District of Columbia, whose handgun ban was struck down by the Supreme Court, is still planning on banning most handguns. And the court decision has spurred the media into overdrive to paint guns as dangerous to their owners. No one who has taken even a quick glance at the crime data can seriously argue that the D.C. gun ban lowered murder or violent crime rates. The concerns being raised are not the threat from criminals, but...

WASHINGTON -- The plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that overturned Washington's strict 32-year-old handgun ban was among the first people to arrive at police headquarters to try to register his firearm. Dick Heller showed up early Thursday, the first day that the city began registering residents for handguns, but he did not get to complete the registration process. That's because he did not bring the firearm that he wanted to register with him, News4's Megan McGrath reported. Heller has been keeping his gun in Maryland and does not believe the amnesty program for people who have kept guns in...

"It appears that the city does not yet understand the decision and order of the Supreme Court," said Heller, a 66-year-old a security guard. "An applicant must fill out registration forms, submit fingerprints and pass a written firearm-proficiency test, while police ballistics experts test-fire the revolver. The revolver will then be returned to the owner, but he or she cannot legally use the weapon, even for self-defense, until notified that the registration has been approved. "

District Gun Registration Starts Tomorrow D.C. police will start the gun registration process at 7 a.m. tomorrow, when it opens an office at police headquarters at 300 Indiana Ave. NW. It is the start of the 180-day amnesty period in which residents may register handguns they have had illegally, or guns from other states. An officer from the gun unit will meet the applicant at the door and take temporary possession of the gun to ensure safety at headquarters. Officers will tag the gun and run ballistics tests before returning it to the owner. Paperwork indicating that registration is in...

The D.C. Council on Tuesday night approved emergency legislation that will repeal the District's 32-year-old ban on handguns while setting stiff regulations for registering and storing guns inside homes. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, a Democrat, is expected to sign the bill as early as Wednesday, which would allow residents to begin registering guns Thursday. The bill passed unanimously in the 13-member council with minimal discussion, though several council members acknowledged that more work should be done on the legislation, which as an emergency bill will only be in effect for 90 days. "There will be more work to be done,"...

The fallacy of gun registration By Charles Bloomer web posted July 14, 2008 One of the gun grabbers' favorite "common sense" gun control measures is gun registration. As with other gun control schemes, the anti-gun crowd never considers whether or not the particular "common sense" law actually does anything constructive. In actuality, the "common sense" gun laws are grossly deficient in common sense. Last week on WTOP radio's "Ask the Chief" program, Washington, DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier inadvertently admitted that the District's gun registration program was a failure. According to the Chief, "Honestly, there are thousands of handguns that...

Almost exactly one year ago, a carload of assailants took to the streets of Calgary and randomly slashed at five pedestrians, killing one of them. A few months later, a crazed man in New York violently attacked an elderly dog-walker and a restaurant worker, “chopping” at them “like a sword” before being killed by police. Only days later, a Salt Lake City man also went on a stabbing spree. On March 23, 2008, a Japanese man carrying two knives stabbed eight people in the city of Tsuchiura, simply because he “just wanted to kill anyone.” And he did. At around...

I had given the speech and was taking questions from the audience - always easier than giving a speech. A man asked me if I had any ideas about how to achieve a rational system of gun control in this country. My answer surprised me. "No," I told him. "I've given up on gun control. That battle is over. We've lost. I no longer think it's an achievable goal and if I were a politician I wouldn't lose an election over it." The audience, a liberal group, was properly aghast. That answer was so unlike me. I've been writing a...

Fertilizer for the Pansy Bed  July 8, 2008 Oh god. There is no hope.The other day I glanced at the web site of the Lake Chapala Society, a social club of sorts for expats around Mexico’s Lake Chapala, an hour south of Guadalajara (where I live). Clicking on “Safety,� I found a long list of reasons why you should never, ever use a firearm to protect your home and family. No. See, you might miss, or be scared, or the intruders might take it away and shoot you, and they might be all mad and hurt you when all they...

Alarming numbers of children feel safer in the street when carrying knives or guns, Government inspectors warned today. A top-level report found that many children were still "very worried" about being bullied and were afraid of being on their own in public areas.

I’ve noted the phenomenon of Big Nanny pediatricians quizzing parents about whether they own guns before. The AMA, of course, is notoriously filled with gun-grabbing activists. Read Shawn shares another example via the Raleigh News and Observer. He e-mails: “No longer satisfied with just making sure the kids are in good health, the doctors now see fit to pry into your personal life to see if you have guns in the home.”

Those looking to buy firearms after the Supreme Court ruling against the District of Columbia's gun ban are out of luck. Purchasing regulations have yet to be written. Days after the Supreme Court ruled that residents of the nation's capital can keep handguns at home for self-defense, George Harley walked out of a Maryland gun shop disheartened, his goal of legally having a gun to protect his family put on hold. Since before Harley, 30, was born, the District of Columbia has restricted its residents' ownership of handguns. After the high court's ruling was handed down late last month, Harley...

Violent crime has doubled since Labour came to power a decade ago. Stabbings and assault in Britain are now common, if not daily occurrences; at night city centers are generally regarded as no-go areas; “feral” youths and gangs loitering the streets – often drunk on cheap alcohol – make many people too afraid to go for a walk on a summer evening. Every week yields up plenty of reasons why people have good reason to be scared in modern Britain. On Saturday evening 60-year old Stan Dixon, a former soldier, was attacked by youths, for asking them not to swear...

“Obama’s alleged support of the Second Amendment is utterly cynical and false.”April 13th, 2008 by Bruno Behrend So says the NRA, and they are 100% correct. The above headline is from one of their recent blast e-mails, and I must say that I endorse their view in this situation. _____ To understand Barack Obama on the Second Amendment, you have to know about the clash of character between the then-Chicago state senator and an ordinary citizen who exercised his right to armed self-defense in violation of a local gun ban. That citizen was a 52-year-old resident of Wilmette, Illinois, who,...

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision upholding the right of the people to keep and bear arms, even in the District of Columbia, has made liberals across the country squeal even louder than they did when the Soviet Union collapsed. The case originated with a “Special Police Officer” named Dick Heller, who carries a handgun as part of his duties, when he requested a permit to store his firearm in his Washington D.C. residence for self-protection. The city denied Heller the permit. He sued, and the District Court ruled against him. But his appeal was granted by the D.C. Court of...

No, we don't suppose that's going to happen any time soon. But it should. The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is evidence that, while the founding fathers were brilliant men, they could have used an editor. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. If the founders had limited themselves to the final 14 words, the amendment would have been an unambiguous declaration of the right to possess firearms. But they didn't, and it isn't. The amendment was intended to...

This year, about 12,000 Americans will be shot to death. It's a staggering figure, and even though lawmakers have continued to pass gun-control laws to try to bring the number down, they have not significantly reduced the murder rate. Indeed, for the last decade, guns have steadily remained the cause of about two-thirds of all homicides. Gun manufacturers insist that these deaths are not their fault, preferring to pin the blame on criminals and irresponsible dealers. They have fiercely resisted even minimal restrictions on sales and have simultaneously washed their hands of responsibility for this "collateral damage." On Thursday, the...

Everyone who has a TV, a computer, a newspaper, or a radio, knows that the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Heller case on Thursday, ruling that the Second Amendment provides a personal right to "keep and bear arms." Therefore it struck down the District of Columbia law that has banned citizens from owning new handguns after 1976. But the case is much more important than that. Cases concern more than just the parties involved. The Heller decision will affect the rights of millions of Americans to protect themselves, their families, and their homes. But the “why” of...

Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year — on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall. The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die senselessly with its wrongheaded and dangerous ruling striking down key parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court precedent, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms for nonmilitary uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a “militia.” The ruling will...

Actually, Obama's writing was on the 1996 document, which was filed when Obama was running for the Illinois state Senate. A Chicago nonprofit, Independent Voters of Illinois, had this question, and Obama took hard line: 35. Do you support state legislation to: a. ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns? Yes. b. ban assault weapons? Yes. c. mandatory waiting periods and background checks? Yes. Q: You said recently, "I have no intention of taking away folks' guns." But you support the D.C. handgun ban, and you've said that it's constitutional. How do you reconcile those two positions? A: Because...

Here is Barack Obama's reaction today to the Supreme Court decision which struck down the D.C. Gun Ban and upheld 2nd Amendment Rights. Obama's statement is clearly politically calculated to minimize his being on the wrong side of this issue. Obama claims to have "consistently" supported the 2nd Amendment as an individual right . . . (see video) But listen to what Obama was saying just this past February about the D.C. Gun Ban . . . (see video)

There's one group of District residents absolutely unfazed by today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling shooting down the District's strict handgun ban: the dudes who have been blowing away their fellow citizens with abandon since the law was put on the books 32 years ago. Operating under the notion that it's better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission, our shooters long ago decided not to wait for the high court's thoughts on the matter. They simply arrogated to themselves the right to keep and bear arms and, with that right, license to shoot and kill, with impunity, whatever and whenever...

Gun-control advocates across the country reacted with shock and outrage at the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns today, saying the ruling would threaten gun-control measures in other states. If there was any doubt that other bans would be in peril, the National Rifle Association quickly put those questions to rest when it announced shortly after the ruling that it would file a flurry of lawsuits challenging restrictions in San Francisco, Chicago and several Chicago suburbs. The law in Washington, which spelled out rules for the storage of weapons and made it extremely...

Statement Of Brady President Paul Helmke On Supreme Court Second Amendment Ruling Washington, D.C. - Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Center and Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, issued the following statement: “Our fight to enact sensible gun laws will be undiminished by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Heller case. While we disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling, which strips the citizens of the District of Columbia of a law they strongly support, the decision clearly suggests that other gun laws are entirely consistent with the Constitution. “For years, the gun lobby has used fear of government gun...

In an eagerly anticipated and strongly worded decision, Justice Antonin Scalia this morning led the Supreme Court to discover and define the Second Amendment as a guarantee of an individual's right to own firearms. In a stunning but narrow 5-4 rebuke to liberal dogma of the past 30 years, where penumbras carried more weight than words, SCOTUS has confirmed what is known as the standard view of the amendment, that it means what it says. While the decision does not automatically expand Second Amendment protections and prohibitions to affect state laws, it will immediately change the terms by which those...

Banning handguns is all the rage. Mayor David Miller's push for a national ban has been joined by other Canadian big-city mayors. Yet, dissatisfied with progress at the national level, Miller successfully asked city council this week to approve measures to further discourage gun ownership in Toronto, such as shutting down city-owned gun ranges. While it may seem obvious to many people that banning handguns will save lives and cut crime, the experience in the United States suggests differently. Two major U. S. cities -- Washington, D.C., and Chicago --have tried banning handguns. (The U. S. Supreme Court is soon...

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on whether Washington, D.C.'s decades-old handgun ban is constitutional. It's been nearly 70 years since the high court has heard a firearms case that tests the scope of the Second Amendment. The outcome of this one, D.C. v. Heller, will have extraordinary implications —- not just for the District, but for the ability of cities to respond effectively to gun violence. If more evidence is needed that the stakes could not be higher, a steady drumbeat of headlines is supplying it. In the first few days of March alone, just before the justices...