Free Republic

President Obama told the country that elections have consequences, and 2016 will emphasize this point. Donald Trump will be the next president, and Republicans will retain control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, albeit with a slimmer margin. More than that, the GOP controls thirty-one governorships, with two more likely, and the party has made gains in state legislatures. If that latter fact lasts past 2020, Republicans will redraw the district maps after the census, potentially solidifying control of the U.S. House. And if they can get their act together, they also stand in good chance...

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump -- who said he has a concealed carry permit -- called for the expansion of gun rights Friday, including making those permits applicable nationwide. In a position paper published on his website Friday afternoon, Trump called for the elimination of gun and magazine bans, labeling them a "total failure." "Law-abiding people should be allowed to own the firearm of their choice. The government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own," Trump wrote. It's not a departure from what he's said on the trail this year, though it...

The Truth About Guns has a spot in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s new Second Amendment Coalition. I’m looking forward to advising and assisting the Trump transition team and later his administration on gun rights issues in the coming weeks and months as a co-chair of his Second Amendment Coalition team.

Election results mark a continuation of the group's impressive success rate when making large investments on candidates.The National Rifle Association took a historic gamble in 2016, and it paid off in a huge way.The gun rights group placed multimillion-dollar bets on Donald Trump and six Republican Senate candidates locked in highly competitive races. It poured $50.2 million, or 96 percent of its total outside spending, into these races, and lost only one — an open seat in Nevada, vacated by the Democratic Minority Leader, Harry Reid. That race cost the NRA roughly $2.5 millionThe NRA’s big night came as a...

President-elect will have chance to fill Scalia’s vacancy; as nominee, he said Second Amendment was ‘under siege’ Mark H. Anderson Updated Nov. 9, 2016 WASHINGTON—Republicans took a big gamble on the Supreme Court earlier this year when they shut down President Barack Obama’s effort to fill a vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. Now, it appears that extraordinary bet may pay off. President-elect Donald Trump will likely get the chance to fill the seat, putting up a nominee after he is inaugurated in January before a Senate that Republicans will control next year. One hurdle...

It seems obvious: Restrict gun access and people will be safer. Indeed, in all four presidential debates, Hillary Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine have pushed for background checks on private transfers of guns. Clinton says this will “keep guns out of the hands of those who will do harm.” After each mass public shooting, President Obama has made a similar case for background checks on private transfers of guns. But theory and practice don’t always match. Too often, gun bans or background checks don’t stop criminals and disarm law-abiding citizens, particularly poor minorities. This only makes life easier for...

Hitman Hamad Assaad's ambush murder captured on police cameras Authorities were about to raid tattooed underworld figure's Sydney house Police Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad was doing surveillance Assaad was gunned down on driveway in front of his 12-year-old nephew Executed hitman Hamad Assaad's gangland murder was captured on video by police as they prepared to raid his home. The 29-year-old underworld figure was repeatedly shot in front of his 12-year-old nephew in Sydney's south-west on Tuesday. Two gunmen ambushed him on his driveway, at Georges Hall, as the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad conducted surveillance on his house,...

There are just a few days left until Election Day, and although you might not be hearing it amid all the chatter about email, the Clinton campaign hasn’t backed off its war on the National Rifle Association. That could have far-reaching implications. If they win, Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine will be in a position to pursue an agenda on guns that would have been unthinkable even to Democrats just a few years ago. And they plan to do it using new language on gun safety that puts the NRA on the defense. Kaine is the face of a new...

You may recall that 2016 was the first year that Seattle began collecting a highly controversial “gun violence tax” on the sale of all firearms and ammunition in the city. The thinly veiled attempt to shut down gun sales survived one court challenge and is currently awaiting appeal in the state supreme court. The tax was ostensibly passed to fund a program at the Harborview Medical Center designed to “reduce the aftereffects of gun violence.” So how much money has this scheme brought in to advance this important work? We have no idea because the city is refusing to release...

JACKSON, Ga. — “Put the guns down!” The order crackled over a loudspeaker from two sheriff’s deputies crouched behind the doors of police cruisers, semiautomatic rifles at their sides. Several middle-aged militiamen were toting loaded AR-15 rifles and 9-millimeter pistols at a makeshift checkpoint — two lawn chairs and a narrow board — on a dirt driveway in central Georgia. The men, members of the Georgia Security Force III% militia, grumbled but laid their weapons down on the red clay earth. The brief standoff ended with an amicable chat, and the men retrieved their weapons the moment the lawmen drove...

Swing states Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida have high rates of gun ownership. They have hundreds of thousands, or in the case of Florida, more than a million, people with carry permits. . . . Emails and vulgar language pale in significance to the prospect of keeping one’s family safe. These are the millions of voters who may well have been ignored by pollsters who haven’t seen the wave of “guntry clubs” being built, the families shooting together, the women taking advanced classes in personal protection and gun fighting. These are the men and women of Donald Trump’s...

“Universal background checks” are the Holy Grail of the civilian disarmament movement. No surprise there. Under the system, all private firearm sales and transfers must go through an FBI background check from a federally licensed firearm (FFL) dealer. The government then has a paper record of every firearm sale between private individuals and those initiated by FFL dealers, including the firearm type and the buyer’s and seller’s name, address and ethnic identity. Which is why UBC opponents call UBC’s “universal gun registration” — enabling as they do the possibility of government gun confiscation/prohibition. Even if you reject that slippery slope...

".... I own a gun and am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment...."

"DIY submachine guns are popping up across the West Bank," the Washington Post reported recently in a piece about a weapon that has repeatedly played a role in Palestinian attacks upon Israelis. The guns are of a common type referred to as the "Carlo," based on the Swedish Carl Gustav M/45, which dates to the World War 2 era. The article added that hundreds of the submachine guns have been confiscated over the past year, and raids staged on 35 mechanics' shops that were cranking them out. "The Carlo has remained so popular because of how little machinery and technical...

There were 2,333,539 gun-related checks processed through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as NICS, last month, according to FBI documents posted on Monday. That represents an increase of more than 350,000 checks over the previous October, itself a record. It’s also the 18th month in a row to set a record. With two months to go, 2016 has already seen 22,206,233 NICS checks, making it the second highest year for checks in the history of NICS with only 2015 seeing more.

California has the nation’s strictest gun laws. There is a waiting period, a written test and a number of restrictions on guns and gear. Some voters pondering Proposition 63 have asked: Haven’t we done enough? Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor, says no. He’s developed the initiative that would push the state’s gun limits even further. Under Proposition 63, ammunition purchasers would be treated similar to gun purchasers. Before a Californian could buy even a single bullet of any kind, he or she would need to pay a fee of up to $50 and wait up to 30 days to obtain...

Guns are an important part of American history, both from a legal and illegal standpoint. From the single action revolvers of the old West to mobsters with Thompson submachine guns, American culture and society have enshrined firearms into our national iconography. They are inherently complicated things, created with the latent potential to protect or to destroy. Beyond our national discussion of gun legislation, the possession of deadly weapons by regular citizens remains a more contested issue. The far right and the far left are exaggerating and arbitrarily simplifying what is an extremely nuanced and philosophical question. I hope to reframe...

The Battle of Athens TN, August 1-2, 1946 On 1-2 August 1946, some Americans, brutalized by their county government, used armed force to overturn it. These Americans wanted honest, open elections. For years they had asked for state or Federal election monitors to prevent vote fraud -- forged ballots, secret ballot counts, and intimidation by armed sheriff's deputies -- by the local political boss. They got no help. These Americans' absolute refusal to knuckle-under had been hardened by service in World War II. Having fought to free other countries from murderous regimes, they rejected vicious abuse by their county government....

The New York Times produced another hit piece on guns, pushing for some sort of general increase in the current infringements on the Second Amendment.  At Reason.com, Brian Doherty did a good job of taking apart much of the bias and ignorance displayed in the article. The Reason.com article is worth reading, and I recommend it.  A fair amount can be summed up in these two paragraphs.  From the nytimes.com: The findings are dispiriting to anyone hoping for simple legislative fixes to gun violence. In more than half the 130 cases, at least one assailant was already barred by...

Federal data showing annual accidental gun deaths in Tennessee soared to 105 from just 19 propelled a fierce firearms control campaign, but it turned out the stats were about as accurate as a two-dollar pistol. The numbers, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seemed to show the Volunteer State led the nation in accidental shooting deaths due to a more than five-fold increase in 2014. But an eagle-eyed Second Amendment advocate's suspicions turned out to be right: The number of accidental deaths had actually dropped, from 19 to just five. “It was a big mistake,” said John Lott,...