Free Republic

More than 100 medical groups are pressuring Congress to fund more gun-control research even though fire and water lead to far more accidental child-deaths than do firearms. According to The Guardian, “a coalition of more than 100 medical groups” sent Congress a letter Wednesday and requested money to fund gun research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Funding research that portrays gun-legislation as public health was disallowed in 1996, via the Dickey amendment. The amendment prohibits the CDC from using research money to “advocate or promote gun control,” and that prohibition has been applied to bar funding...

CS Thachenkary had been a business professor for 33 years at Georgia State University and headed up several faculty senate committees. But this year, a bill he predicted would pass hastened his decision to retire. "I met with my dean back in September and gave him advance notice," he said. "I told him: 'This gun bill is going to raise its ugly head – and I don't want to be among the first casualties.'" The bill to allow guns on college campuses did pass, and now awaits the signature or veto of Georgia’s governor, Nathan Deal. . . . Deal...

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Tuesday that she met with President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Merrick Garland, and she is “more convinced than ever that the process should proceed” despite the GOP leadership’s assertion that the next president should nominate the next Supreme Court justice. “I’ve just concluded a more than hour-long meeting with Judge Garland. It was an excellent meeting that allowed us to explore many of the issues that I would raise with any nominee to the Supreme Court as well as some of the criticisms that have been levied against him. The meeting left me...

A teacher in the Connecticut town that was site of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history was arrested Wednesday after police say he brought a gun onto school grounds. Jason M. Adams, a teacher at Newtown Middle School, was carrying a concealed firearm for which he had a permit, Newtown police said. He was stopped inside the school by security personnel Wednesday before 9 a.m., the Newtown Public School District and police said. Newtown police said Adams faces a charge of possession of a weapon on school grounds, a Class D felony, according to Connecticut law. Adams,...

Sen. Chuck Schumer issued an urgent plea Monday for iGunControl ahead of the release of a new firearm that looks like a smartphone. The .380-caliber double-barrel handgun, manufactured by Ideal Conceal, is expected to hit the shelves in mid-2016 and will only cost $395, Schumer said. . . . "It's clearly being marketed for nefarious purposes — 4,000 people are ready to pull the trigger on this dangerous weapon," Schumer said. . . . "Why would we want to make it easier for criminals or terrorists like those who attacked Paris and Brussels to wreak havoc?" he said.

Two Senate Republicans are seeking to understand the Veterans Affairs office practice of reporting veterans to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check system. Currently a veterans assigned a fiduciary trustee to act on their behalf is automatically declared “mentally defective” and is reported to NICS, the database Federal Firearms Licensees use to determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy guns. As of December 2015, the VA has reported 260,381 individuals to the FBI, effectively making them prohibited firearms possessors under the law. U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa lawmaker who is currently the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, finds this...

The Fresh Market this week joined a handful of other grocers in asking its customers not to bring guns or other weapons into its stores.

Throughout the interior West, states in a belt from Montana to New Mexico are looking for ways to lower their highest-in-the-nation suicide rates, although gun-specific initiatives are a touchy topic. In Montana, with the highest rate, suicide prevention coordinator Karl Rosston acknowledges some frustration as the toll rises, including the recent deaths of several teenagers who used guns from their own homes. “People are afraid we’re trying to take away guns, which is not the case,” Rosston said. “I understand the sensitivity of it, but I’ve got to ask the questions when we have kids who shoot themselves.” …

The Greesnboro, North Carolina-based chain issued a statement saying it wants to "ensure a welcoming environment where our customers and employees feel safe, and treat one another with kindness and respect while shopping and working," . . The grocer said it had engaged in discussions about the policy with a group of activists called Moms Demand Action, who gathered nearly 4,000 signatures across North Carolina to support the "gun sense policy." . . Moms Demand Action has also asked Matthews-based Harris Teeter to implement gun bans in its stores. It delivered petitions to Harris Teeter last year. The activist group...

Unable to pass new gun-control bills this year, months after the state's deadliest shooting, Oregon Democrats are diving into campaign season with promises to try again in 2017. House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson, D-Portland, wants to revive a measure that would limit default gun sales when background checks take longer than expected, after the bill earned tepid support and died in the Senate last month. Advisers for Gov. Kate Brown and Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum huddled with advocates in separate meetings Thursday to hear about executive actions they might take without legislative approval. Brown, up for election this year, had...

**Longmeadow Alert** NO on Articles 27, 28, 29! A few updates on the alert regarding the three articles to be voted on at town meeting on May 10th. • GOAL Members in Longmeadow have organized and set up a website - please follow it and share! http://www.longforliberty.org/ • The Articles are now numbered 27, 28, 29. • GOAL has confirmed that Select Board Member Alex Grant is the proponent of the three articles. Alex is a federal prosecutor and submitted the articles via citizens petition. • A Life Member of GOAL and Longmeadow resident, Walt Lamon has volunteered to lead...

President Barack Obama heads to law school next week to push his nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Obama adviser Brian Deese said Friday that Obama will return Thursday to the University of Chicago Law School to argue for Senate consideration of the appeals judge’s nomination. Obama taught constitutional law at the university for several years before he entered politics. …

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Governor John Kasich’s hopes that he had overcome the anti-gun reputation he had earned for supporting the Clinton Gun Ban in 1994 may now be dashed, after he told two separate Sunday talk shows that he is considering nominating a Supreme Court justice who might abolish the Second Amendment.

Like so many mass public shootings, the gunman who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Monday first tried shooting a uniformed officer. Fortunately, the lone gunman was quickly subdued and no one other than the attacker was seriously injured. But it raises questions of what would have happened with a more coordinated terrorist attack. With terror attacks occurring regularly around the world, we can’t ignore the fact that the Capitol would provide a primary target for terrorists. Indeed, an FBI informant foiled such an attack in January. Police are crucial – probably the single most important factor in reducing crime. But...

Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is returning to Pennsylvania's airwaves for the first time since last summer, advancing a pro-law enforcement and pro-gun control message as Democrats step up attacks on him. The ads, starting Tuesday, tout Toomey's support for undoing Obama administration restrictions on police access to U.S. military gear and Toomey's push to expand background checks on firearms purchases. Toomey's re-election bid is expected to be expensive and hotly contested, and the seat in closely divided Pennsylvania is viewed as crucial to control of the Senate.

Two Senate Republicans are trying to find out why 260,000 vets have been stripped of their gun rights. The Veterans Affairs office has made it a practice to report veterans to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check system. If veterans need help doing paper work, they lose their rights. It’s clearly a violation of the Second Amendment. Any veteran who is assigned a fiduciary trustee to act on their behalf is automatically declared “mentally defective” and is reported to NICS, the database Federal Firearms Licensees use to determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy guns.

WSJ More Seniors, Fearing Crime, Flock to Shooting Ranges Gun dealers say personal safety is a priority for older people who want firearms training By James R. Hagerty AUSTINTOWN, Ohio—On a recent Monday at the Austintown Senior Center, activities included painting, bingo and shooting guns. Around 9:45 a.m., a dozen people in their 60s and 70s bundled into a van and several cars and headed to the nearby American Range shooting gallery, whose lobby features a portrait of Clint Eastwood over the legend “Go ahead make your day.” Soon, they were blasting away at paper targets dangling in a dim,...

Arizona Citizens Defense League Needs Your Help Persuading Legislators In Arizona on 17 March, 2016, Governor Ducey signed into law SB1487.  The law gives legislators and the State Attorney General a way to sanction lower units of government who flout the State Constitution and State law.  How does it work? From the bill(pdf)41-194.01. Violations of state law by counties, cities and towns; attorney general investigation; report; withholding of state shared revenue A. AT THE REQUEST OF ONE OR MORE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE, THE ATTORNEY GENERAL SHALL INVESTIGATE ANY ORDINANCE, REGULATION, ORDER OR OTHER OFFICIAL ACTION ADOPTED OR TAKEN BY...

Late at night this month, the pastor’s phone beeped with a text message from an anguished parishioner. Andre Taylor, the church member’s great-nephew, had been shot and killed. “Dre had just turned 16,” the message on the Rev. Ira Acree’s phone read. “I think that it’s time to call for action and solicit help, have the National Guard to take over and patrol the Chicago streets.” Four days earlier, another text had appeared. A different parishioner’s granddaughter, Daysha Wright, a 21-year-old nursing student, had been shot to death in a car, leaving a 2-year-old son. At his desk at Greater...

In last night’s episode of Quantico, "Turn," before a terrorist attack against the FBI Training Academy has even concluded, a visiting senator (Marcia Cross) rails against firearms, declaring their use a “privilege,” not a right. At least ABC’s Quantico got it right about how quickly opponents of the Second Amendment rush to politicize any shooting. Sen. Claire Haas: I'd like to acknowledge the brave men and women who defended our campus today. That includes one of our own -- trainee Perales. 330. That's the number of mass shootings in this country in 2015, an average of almost one per day....