Free Republic

No Class: We’ve always been sympathetic to former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., after she survived a mass shooting incident at a campaign event in January 2011. That’s a horrific thing to experience and we sympathize with all victims of violence, no matter what the cause. But her gun control organization has gone too far in a new campaign aimed at flipping pro-gun rights congressional districts: It is using 3-D statuettes of a child cowering under a school desk to depict an “active shooter” situation.

A Steamboat Springs couple recently had a scary encounter with a mountain lion at Mad Creek. Mark Stanford and his wife, Kristen Joaquim, were having a picnic Monday for Joaquim's birthday at the Mad Creek barn, and they started hiking back to the parking area at about 7:45 p.m. "I looked up and saw a set of eyes staring back at me," Stanford said. He said he saw a yellow-green reflection off the eyes, and he tried to size up the animal. "I could see that it was a big cat," Stanford said. "I knew that they had sighting ups...

A federal judge has struck down a 95-year-old California law banning firearms dealers from placing ads for handguns or images of handguns on their storefronts. In a decision made public on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley in Sacramento, the state’s capital, said the law was “unconstitutional on its face” because it violated dealers’ commercial speech rights under the First Amendment. State officials said allowing the ads could spur people with “impulsive personality traits” to buy more handguns, and the law advanced California’s interests in reducing handgun crime and handgun suicides. But Nunley found the law too narrow, saying dealers...

SACRAMENTO — Sold from vending machines in Pennsylvania, feed depots in Nevada, pharmacies in Georgia and jewelry stores in Texas, ammunition is in many states easier to buy than cold medicine. But in California, which already enforces some of the nation’s most restrictive gun laws, there is a movement underway against the unfettered sale of bullets. Gun control advocates here have pushed to limit internet sales, ban large-capacity magazines, require sellers to have licenses, raise taxes on bullets, and mandate serial numbers or other traceable markings on ammunition so that the police can more easily track them. Such regulations, several...

Chip Bergh CEO Levi Strauss Image from YouTube Levi Strauss & Co. CEO and president Chip Bergh has jumped into the debate over the Second Amendment and American rights to self defense with both feet. He has come down on the side of those who want population disarmament.  In 2016, Levi Strauss asked gun owners not to bring guns to their stores. They claimed they were not against gun owners, they just did not like people exercising the Second Amendment in their stores. From splinternews.com: Citing a recent incident in which a customer was injured after the gun they...

Circuit Court Judge Jeff Harris this week ruled against University of Missouri law professor Royce Barondes, who challenged the school’s rule prohibiting concealed guns on campus — even if they’re locked in a personal car. {snip} Barondes, who has worked at MU since 2002 and teaches a course on firearms law, sued the university in 2015, challenging its gun prohibition. He sought no monetary payment. {snip} But Wednesday’s ruling only represents a partial victory for the university. The judge also has been asked to consider whether the MU gun policy is constitutional, a completely different question than whether it violates...

Levi Strauss & Co. has expanded their original mission beyond the manufacture of blue jeans. This “values driven company” now feels a responsibility to “the communities where we live and work” and will now engage with other gun control groups to fight for “gun violence prevention.” Chip Berg, CEO of Levi Strauss, wrote an open letter to his customers asking them not to bring firearms onto the premises of their stores, offices or other facilities. For him, it was a matter of safety. Of course, law enforcement was exempt from that request.

Three years ago, which means it was before the mass murders at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs -- but after Sandy Hook Elementary and Fort Hood -- a University of Alabama professor sought to answer a chilling public policy question: Do countries other than the U.S. experience anything approaching America’s mayhem at the hands of shooters who randomly slaughter people in public places? The researcher’s name is Adam Lankford, and his answer was unequivocal. No, it only happens here, he proclaimed in a much-quoted 2016 academic paper. America, he said, stands alone. From...

White House Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah responded Tuesday to a tweet from the father of a Parkland shooting victim, Fred Guttenberg, who said that Judge Kavanaugh “turned his back” to him and likely “didn’t want to discuss gun violence.” Guttenberg's attempt to speak with Kavanaugh was also captured in an Associated Press photograph.Shah explained that security intervened before President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee was able to shake Guttenberg’s hand, showing a full video of the incident. NEW VIDEO of hearing room clearly shows security intervened when Judge #Kavanaugh was approached. pic.twitter.com/ZGRRCcWroW— Raj Shah (@RajShah45) September 4, 2018 Some in...

Fiction: A major paper released in 2016 and often cited by the gun-hating Left claiming that the United States has the highest rate of mass shootings is completely bogus, according to a new report that examined the data and methodology. The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), founded by noted criminologist John Lott, Jr., said that the paper, written by Adam Lankford, got massive national and international coverage when it was first published. Even former President Obama referenced Lankford’s claims to justify calls for ‘sensible gun control.’

At a Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) event in Amarillo this week, he was visited by a protester who is supporting his opponent, Beto O'Rourke. The protester didn't like what Cruz had to say about gun control, so he made a scene. A Cruz supporter spoke up and shouted at him to "come and take it!" As in, come and take their guns. The O'Rourke protester offered a surprisingly honest response. Emily Miller ✔ @EmilyMiller Beto O’Rourke protester yelling in town hall on gun control. Texan man- “Come and take it!” Beto guy, “We will!” Then @tedcruz said, That exchange...

The owner of a company that makes blueprints for 3D-printed guns said Tuesday that he has begun selling instructions for making the guns despite a court order barring him from uploading the directions, The Associated Press reported. U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik on Monday extended a previous ruling that barred Cody Wilson and his company, Defense Distributed, from uploading directions for 3D-printed guns to the internet. Wilson said at a news conference that he began selling the instructions in the U.S. on Tuesday morning and has already received almost 400 orders, according to the AP. He indicated he believes he...

“If you feel that it is somehow at all appropriate to bring a gun to class (hint: it is not — this is absurd, antisocial, and frightening behavior), you are restricted to spending your time in class in my ‘second amendment zone’ a 3x3 taped square on the floor in the very back of the classroom......“This zone also does not include a desk, because desks are reserved for students who respect the personal and psychological safety of their classmates and instructor.”

Washington's Supreme Court has cleared the way for a gun-control initiative to appear on the November ballot. The court late Friday afternoon reversed a judge's decision earlier this month that threw out more than 300,000 signatures used to qualify Initiative 1639, saying the petition format did not follow election law. Thurston County Superior Court Judge James Dixon had said the signature petitions did not clearly identify what would change in the law and the font was too small to be readable. He ordered the secretary of state to stop certification of the measure. But the Supreme Court ruling, written by...

David Hogg, the 18-year-old school shooting survivor turned gun-control activist, says he’s gearing up to run for Congress when he’s constitutionally eligible. Speaking to New York Magazine, Hogg described his ideal seven-year plan, which culminates with him running for the House of Representatives when he’s 25.

Toronto -- A shootout on a summer evening in July killed a high school graduate and a 10-year-old girl. In August a sniper in an apartment complex shot dead four people, including two police officers, at sunrise. This might sound like a familiar storyline in the United States. But the tragedies have mounted in Canada – these latest respectively in Toronto and Fredericton, New Brunswick – part of what has been dubbed a “summer of the gun” here. Not surprisingly, it has spurred a debate on the increasing role of firearms in Canadian society. But the conversation is taking place...

Recordings and summaries of emergency calls show Washington wildlife officials at first objected to an air rescue of a woman treed by wolves, or help from the Okanogan County sheriff. Washington wildlife managers initially opposed sending a helicopter or a search-and-rescue team to save a woman treed by wolves in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, according to recordings and summaries of emergency calls. ... Notes from a call between DNR dispatcher Jill Jones and a wildlife officer summarized WDFW’s position, and her position, shortly before the helicopter launched. “No helicopter. Federally listed species. 3 WDFW personnel saying so,” according to DNR’s...

Right-wing demonstrators gathered Saturday in Seattle for a "Liberty or Death" rally that drew counter-protesters from the left while dozens of police kept the two sides separated. The right-wing groups Washington 3 Percenters and Patriot Prayer were holding the rally outside Seattle City Hall to protest an effort to launch a gun-control initiative that would raise the age in Washington state for people buying semi-automatic rifles. The left-wing groups Organized Workers for Labor Solidarity, Radical Women and the Freedom Socialist Party were rallying at the same site.

As the Democrats shift to the left on a number of issues from health care to immigration, they’ve already gone all in on one of the most contentious issues around -- gun control. A study by The Wall Street Journal found that of the 63 candidates on the House Democrats’ campaign arm’s list of seats to flip in November, 62 support expanded background checks for gun purchases. While Dems have long pushed for gun control, there was a time when some candidates ignored the issue, included gun rights as part of their platform or even allied with the National Rifle...

Organizers behind gun control Initiative 1639 did not comply with state signature gathering rules, according to a Thurston County superior court judge who ruled in favor of the NRA Friday. I-1639 will now be removed from the November ballot. “The National Rifle Association is glad to see the court today recognized how negligent, if not worse, gun control advocates were in their signature-gathering for this ill-advised ballot initiative,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director, NRA-ILA.Gun rights advocates protested the manner in which I-1639 collected signatures in Washington state. Secretary of State Kim Wyman even commented that her office has never...