Free Republic

during a speech on Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris praised Australia’s strict gun control laws, which include a ban on automatic and semi-automatic firearms and a mandatory buyback program that removed nearly 700,000 privately-owned firearms from circulation in the 1990s. “In our country today, the leading cause of death of American children is gun violence. Gun violence has terrorized and traumatized so many of our communities in the United States,” Harris said. “And let us be clear, it does not have to be this way – as our friends in Australia have demonstrated.” Unlike in the U.S., Australian citizens do...

On June 23, a study on the underreporting of firearm ownership was published in the Journal ” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.” The title is “Predicting potential underreporting of firearm ownership in a nationally representative sample,” hereafter referred to as the ‘study.’ The study indicated the number of people who refuse to report they are firearm owners, who have been called “shy” firearms owners, are about as numerous as firearms owners willing to identify themselves as such. The full study is behind a paywall online. Allison E. Bond, the principal author of the study, was very kind and sent a...

After years of flip-flopping, the ATF has issued a rule recharacterizing guns with pistol braces, making millions of currently owned guns subject to federal "short-barrel" rifle registration, together with a $200 tax. The effect of this rule change is particularly potent in Connecticut, where existing laws banning so-called "assault rifles" are immediately triggered. Owners there of handguns with pistol braces cannot merely remove the brace if the weapon has a "forward pistol grip" or "second hand grip"; these guns are effectively rendered instantly illegal due to the fickle federal rule change. Prior to the rule change, Connecticut gun-owners could legally...

In the record-breaking sale of firearms in 2020, there were many people in that number that purchased firearms for the first time.Many of the new gun owners were driven to purchase guns because of the uncertainty seen in 2020. There were many riots. There were prosecutors who refused to prosecute. The murder rate grew rapidly. The political system was attacked and vilified.Gun sales reached a record level of about 20.66 million guns sold in 2020, according to this correspondent’s calculations.The National Shooting Sports Foundation ran surveys at numerous retail outlets. Those surveys indicated there were about 8.4 million first time...

The California Attorney General’s office leaked the names and addresses of the state’s legal gun owners. The private information of California’s gun owners was posted in publicly-accessible files to the California Department of Justice’s 2022 Firearms Dashboard Portal, The Reload reported. "We are investigating an exposure of individuals’ personal information connected to the DOJ Firearms Dashboard,” a spokesperson for the office told The Reload. “Any unauthorized release of personal information is unacceptable. We are working swiftly to address this situation and will provide additional information as soon as possible.” The Reload reported:

Signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last September, Assembly Bill 173 amended state firearms laws to allow California to turn over gun owners’ personal information to gun violence researchers. Finding there was no “emergency” to warrant restraining California from sharing millions of gun owners’ personal information with gun violence researchers, a federal judge Wednesday declined to block the state’s enactment of Assembly Bill 173.U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns heard from attorneys for Jane and John Does and Attorney General Rob Bonta regarding a constitutional challenge to Assembly Bill 173, a law which amended California firearms laws to authorize...

The Biden administration’s decision to stop the importation of ammunition from Russia has some supporters of the right to arms chafing, but its effect can easily be minimized.The Biden administration’s decision to stop the importation of ammunition from Russia—which it claims is in retaliation for that country’s attempted assassination of a political opposition figure—has some supporters of the right to arms chafing. However, it is relatively inconsequential, the ammunition shortage it compounds has been mostly the fault of hoarders, and its effect can easily be minimized.Biden’s decision is relatively inconsequential because, first, it pales in comparison to everything else he,...

Kamala Harris is the gun owner’s worst nightmare. Unlike others who merely have an anti-gun philosophy and voting record, she has shown the extremes that she will use in an executive position in order to disarm Americans. Gun owners should be terrified of the possibility of her using those extremes in the White House. Instead of merely wanting to limit our Second Amendment rights, Kamala Harris simply doesn’t believe in those rights. In 2008, she used her position as San Francisco District Attorney to sign onto an amicus brief in the Heller case, dealing with whether the D.C. ban on...

Protesters on the way to the home of Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best were met by armed residents of the neighborhood, leading to the quote of the day: Protestor: “We are peaceful! You pointed a gun at my face!” Resident: “That’s why you are peaceful.”

The New York State Supreme Court last week granted a motion ordering the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to turn over the name, zip codes and license category of anyone who was granted a firearm license in 2018. The New York Daily News made the request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request process, which provides public information from government agencies to citizens and journalists. ... The Daily News argues that the information can be turned over because of a state law – known as the SAFE Act – that declared "that names and addresses of all firearms...

Just before our Independence Day celebration, British journalist Piers Morgan took to Twitter to complain about surging firearms sales here. He tweeted, “BREAKING: Just when you thought the news couldn't more depressing...8.3 million guns have been sold in the United States since March, meaning 2020 is on course to be the biggest year for gun sales in American history.” Morgan, who once told Ben Shapiro our Constitution is a mere “little book,” isn’t the only one downplaying this incredible phenomenon. Gun control activists are touting a new UC-Davis study, absent of peer review and marked by faulty methodology, attributing historic...

GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) — A Florida sheriff says he will deputize every gun owner in his county to put down any violent protests his deputies can’t handle alone. Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels gave no indication in a three-minute video released Wednesday that any demonstrations are planned in his suburban Jacksonville county. Daniels also said he would protect any peaceful protests, but added that if anyone starts “tearing up Clay County, that is not going to be acceptable.”

Traditional Sunday Holy Mass Propers † Dominica in Sexagesimae ~ Sexagesima Sunday † Statio ad S. Paulum ~ Station at Saint Paul Without-the-Walls Anno Dómini 27 February 2011 Color: Violaceus ~ Violet Vestments ~ II Classis ~ Second Class Observance Exsurge, quare obdormis, Domine? exsurge, et ne repellas in finem ~ Arise, why sleepest Thou, O Lord? arise, and cast us not off to the end "....Vobis datum est nosse mysterium regni Dei ~ To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God...." In Commemoration † Saint Gabriel Francis Possenti of Our Lady of...

JACKSON – A prior requirement calling for additional fingerprinting for firearm applicants after a two year period is no longer being enforced by the township’s police department. Council President Rob Nixon clarified the issue during a May 28 Council meeting where a firearms organization took aim at Township Police Chief Matthew Kunz for requiring multiple fingerprinting for firearm applicants. Hightstown resident Alex “Aljandro” Roubian, the president and managing editor of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society (NJ2AS) questioned Nixon before and during the evening’s session concerning what the chief’s policy was. According to the organization’s website, the NJ2AS is a...

Joseph Stalin’s firearms registration and confiscation was a tremendous success for the Socialist state. Under the Tsar, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. That all changed when Stalin and the communists took control. Stalin was able to control, starve, punish and imprison a defenseless people… after he took their guns. (Zinnfigur) This video is a shocking reminder on how Stalin was able to control, starve, punish and imprison a defenseless people. It’s no secret that Democrats are hoping to repeat this history here in the United States. The Boston Mayor’s Office is pushing a new...

A Harvard graduate student was told she has to move out of her apartment after her roommates found her legally owned firearms “uncomfortable” and anxiety-inducing. Leyla Pirnie, a 24-year-old Alabama native, told the Washington Free Beacon that she felt roommates violated her privacy after searching her room without her consent and then confronting her over gun ownership.

Democratic California Rep. Eric Swalwell suggested on Friday that the U.S. government could use nuclear weapons on its own citizens if they fight back against firearm confiscation. Right-wing internet personality Joe Biggs tweeted at Swalwell in response to a May report that Swalwell wants to ban “military-style semiautomatic assault weapons” and prosecute gun owners who did not turn in their newly-banned weapons.

On 2 September 2018, Kansas University released a summation of a study on how gun owners affect politics.  The study will be presented at the American Political Science Association annual meeting in 2018, in Boston. A problem all scientists face is overcoming assumptions about reality they have already made. It is particularly true in social sciences such as political science. In such studies, it is very difficult to keep the world view of the person studying a subject from influencing the study.Most political scientists today subscribe to the Progressive political philosophy. It seems to be the case in the study...

A licensed gun owner was hailed Thursday for his role in helping police in suburban Chicago stop a suspect who was firing an automatic weapon, officials said. Officials commended the unnamed civilian for his actions as they stood outside a hospital where Cicero police Officer Luis Duarte, 31, was undergoing surgery for four gunshot wounds suffered during the shootout, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. “We were lucky enough to have a citizen on the street there’s who’s a concealed-carry holder, and he’s also engaged in gunfire,” said Cicero police Superintendent Jerry Chlada Jr. Image Gallery 3 PHOTOS Cicero police Officer...

image from pagunblog.com The Washington Post published an article meant to convince the American people that their perceptions of gun ownership in the United States are wrong. They attempt to convince people that surveys showing lower numbers are goodthink. The article admits that gun ownership numbers are hotly disputed. They admit that ownership numbers are difficult to determine. Then they make the claim that ownership rates are falling and that  "In reality, only about 25 percent of Americans own a gun." From the Washington Post: As some 70,000 people attended the NRA’s annual convention last week, nearly three months after...