Free Republic

On the day South Florida mourned a slain police officer, Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson stopped in Miami and stuck firmly to his guns over what he says is the unnecessary call for limiting the right to bear arms. ''I do not think that abrogating Second Amendment rights is a good idea,'' the Republican said at the Versailles in Little Havana. ''The amount of violence created on the street by these kinds of weapons is very, very small,'' Thompson said. ``It's too bad. It's horrendous. Any kind -- whether it's a knife or an IED [improvised explosive device] or a...

LAKELAND | It's not the big sit-down dinner and speech at the Yacht Club that local Republican Party planners had hoped for, but the former U.S. senator from Tennessee and now presidential candidate, Fred Thompson, will be in Lakeland at 11 a.m. Saturday to speak to those attending a gun show at The Lakeland Center. Supporters said they hope he will return for a longer visit later in the campaign. But for now, Thompson, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, is on a three-day, whirlwind tour of the state beginning today and ending Saturday... Thompson will be met...

Sen. Joe Biden is the embodiment of snide. Snide is the embodiment of the left-wing attitude toward gun owners. So when snide Joe Biden confronted a YouTube user who asked Democrat presidential candidates about gun control during a debate Monday night, what unfolded was a Teachable YouTube Moment -- the caught-on-tape embodiment of ideological snideness toward the Second Amendment and those who defend it. "Good evening, America. My name is Jered Townsend from Clio, Michigan," the YouTube citizen questioner began. "To all the candidates, tell me your position on gun control, as myself and other Americans really want to know...

The Roanoke Times is the latest newspaper to discover that just because something can be done does not mean it should be done. As reported by Michelle Malkin and others, the Times on March 11 ran an editorial titled "Shedding Light on Concealed Handguns" announcing that it was publishing a list of everyone in Virginia's New River Valley possessing a concealed carry permit. This type of story has become a ritual event with second and third-tier news outlets across the country. Others who have published similar stories include the suburban New York Westchester-Rockland Journal News, the Argus Leader of South...

Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY Voters removed a 3rd District judge who reduced the sentence of a sex offender and also caught the wrath of deer hunters and gun owners for an anti-hunting diatribe from the bench. In Salt Lake, Tooele and Summit counties, 54 percent of voters Tuesday said Judge Leslie Lewis should not be retained, a rare defeat for a sitting jurist. Lewis, a judge since 1991, was out of town and unavailable for comment, court spokeswoman Nancy Volmer said Wednesday. “I just don’t like the way this one was done,” said Greg Skordas, one of 40 lawyers...

Nearly two years after a dispute over a deer stand that left six western Wisconsin hunters dead, a new Rice Lake park dedicated to the hunters has been completed. Hunters Memorial Park will be dedicated at 1 p.m. Monday. The park, at Whitetail Drive and Linden Avenue, was built with private donations and will be given to the city of Rice Lake. North Builders Association donated labor, one of the two lots needed and some of the building materials. It also raised funds to cover other park expenses. Aspen Creek Services donated the second lot. The cost of the park...

1950's-era science fiction writer Robert F. Heinlein observed, in one of his science fiction novels in which he depicted future society as a kind of Wild West in which all citizens were armed and duels were commonplace; "An armed society is a polite society." In the American West in the 1880's, a man could find himself in a fight to the death over a perceived insult. Shooting a card cheat caught in the act was justifiable homicide in practice, whether or not it was codified in law. Disrespecting decent women was an offense that could put one on Boot Hill...

JUNEAU, Alaska — Starting Wednesday, a new anti-gun-control law in Alaska will allow handgun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit in the seven Alaska cities where permits are now required. Gun owners will be allowed to keep their firearms in their vehicle, even if the car is parked on private property where the owner has a no-gun policy. And, some police chiefs say, local ordinances that ban guns from public buildings such as city halls will no longer be enforceable. Alaska’s new law forbids municipalities from passing gun laws that are more restrictive than state law. The National...

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Green Bay police is against concealed-carry. Figures. http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/local_22121330.shtml

The newly appointed CIA Director Porter Goss, believes that terrorists may bring urban warfare techniques learned in Iraq to our homeland. If he is right, we could have a whole new war on our hands. The prospect is indeed scary. The idea of terrorist cells operating clandestinely in the United States, quietly amassing handguns and assault rifles, and planning suicide shooting rampages in our malls, is right out of Tom Clancy’s most recent novel. If not for the fact that the 9/11 attacks were also foreshadowed in a Clancy novel, I would have given the idea no further thought. However,...

BANGOR - A gun and ammunition tax that would create a fund to increase security at the state's courthouses has been proposed by several members of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee. The 7 percent tax would be in addition to the 5 percent state sales tax that consumers already pay when they buy guns and ammunition from licensed dealers in the state.George Smith, executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, said on Monday that while the organization supports improved security at courthouses, it would oppose the bill."Making law abiding citizens who are gun owners pay the entire cost of something...

If there is one thing liberals love more than banning Christianity from public schools it is creating ineffective gun control laws. Despite hard evidence that gun control laws do not lower crime, stop violence, or make society safer in any way, liberals keep plugging away at our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. I am not going to weary you with a regurgitation of all the well known statistics showing how strict gun control laws are followed by sharp spikes in violent crime rates or with arguments asking the Left to explain the intellectual consistency behind their view...

Back before the November election, many mainstream media pundits - trying desperately to get John Kerry elected -- began to harp on President Bush's unwillingness to stop certain federal gun control laws from expiring as scheduled. But their propaganda efforts came to naught because this issue was a non-starter with the American people. The fact is, in this day of post-911 increased security consciousness, most average Americans simply don't want more gun control. They want more guns on hand to defend themselves and their loved ones in the face of possible life-threatening danger. Soccer moms are now taking handgun proficiency...

CAST YOUR VOTE, PROTECT YOUR GUN RIGHTS, SAYS CCRKBA In just a few days, the future of American gun rights will be decided at voting booths across the country, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) today urged all gun owners to "take the necessary hour and vote to protect your gun rights." "It's not only a question of who will occupy the Oval Office for the next four years," observed CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, "but who will sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, who may be appointed to federal appeals courts, and who...

www.gunowners.org May 2003 Descent Into Madness: 48 Hours In The California Legislative System by Michael Marks Stereotypes are a common part of American culture. Often as not they are based on a grain of truth wrapped in a mile of exaggeration. While most of us enjoy a good laugh at the wacky world of California politics, a rational man might think that accounts of strange thinking on the Left Coast, like any good bass fishing story, were a little larger than life. After spending two days in the halls of California state government in Sacramento, it is apparent that the...

Firearms users often get an undeserving negative portrayal in the popular press and films. It's time for the real story to be told. A new book and a DVD provide some much-needed balance By James A. Swan, Ph.D. Author "In Defense of Hunting" A lawyer by training, John Grisham has penned some of the most popular thriller novels of recent years, most of which have become successful feature films. Many of Grisham's stories involve courtroom drama and the legal battles. In "Runaway Jury," 12 jurors who have been investigated, manipulated and harassed by lawyers and consultants trying to secure a...

An armed man who tried to carjack a motorist at a DeKalb County gas station Sunday was killed when the motorist shot at him, police said.DeKalb police said the would-be carjacker, Banarrek Von Clayton, 28, was shot in the leg and later died at Grady Memorial Hospital.The motorist, Brian Dean, 24, told police he was at a gas station in the 4300 block of Glenwood Road at about 3 a.m. when Clayton approached him and threatened him with a gun.Dean then took out his gun and shot Clayton in the leg, said Sgt. Willie Durrett.Clayton was able to drive off...

Many close observers of the Supreme Court expect a ruling in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA – better known as McCain-Feingold) case McConnell v. FEC before the High Court goes home for Christmas break on December 15. The National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the plaintiffs in McConnell, is already planning its next move. Even if only a threat, it’s a strategy you could easily imagine John Cleese of Monty Python fame coming up with – acting absurd to illustrate the absurdity of the law. It’s a beautiful idea. Under present law institutional media organizations like ABC or CNN,...

When Jimmie Rosenbruch went north last month, bound for the high country of southeast Alaska to stalk mountain goats, the Utah sportsman and master hunting guide toted more than a rifle into the wilderness. Mr. Rosenbruch, a burly lifelong Republican and acquaintance of former President George H.W. Bush, also carried personal displeasure over the natural- resource agenda of Mr. Bush's son. In particular, Rosenbruch and a groundswell of other gun owners from the lower 48 are challenging the Bush administration's plan to undo protection of Alaska's Tongass and Chugach national forests by opening both to increased logging and road construction....