Free Republic

A federal appeals court has struck down as unconstitutional some of the District’s handgun registration laws, including requirements that gun owners re-register firearms every three years and are limited to registering only one pistol per month. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District ruled 2-1 on the case Friday, upholding some portions of the city’s gun laws but striking others because the District failed to prove that the requirements promoted public safety. Among the provisions that the appeals court struck down Friday was a requirement that registrants bring their firearms with them to MPD headquarters to be inspected and...

(...) Following the on-air shooting of two television reporters in Roanoke, Virginia, she declared: “I feel just great heartache at what happened. I want to reiterate how important it is [that] we not let yet another terrible instance go by without trying to do something more to prevent this terrible killing that is stalking our country.” She added: "We have got to do something about gun violence in America — and I will take it on." She said the same thing back in July, in an obvious shift away from avoiding Second Amendment issues during the presidential campaign to avoid...

A new study in the American Journal of Public Health claims that the state of Connecticut’s 1995 gun licensing law has reduced firearm homicide rates by 40 percent. But this just released study gives academics a bad name. Not surprisingly, anti-gun activist and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and the left-wing Joyce Foundation funded the research. The study cherry picks which states with gun licensing laws are examined, which years are looked at, and the type of crime to study. Any normal researcher would look at all the states in the country that have passed a similar law...

One would think that Catholic priests like Chicago’s Rev. Michael Pfleger, an early supporter of Barack Obama and his push for gun control, would not be bearing false witness against one of his neighbors. Yet there he was standing in front of Chuck’s Gun Shop in suburban Riverdale, Illinois, to blame it, and other legal businesses like it, along with the National Rifle Association, for the murder spree in the gun-controlled progressive worker’s paradise of Chicago. Standing with the camera-shy Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence president Dan Gross in front of the gun shop,...

Gun Control: To some, concern over a U.N. Arms Trade Treaty set to take effect Dec. 24 is much ado about nothing. But a president unconstrained by Congress or the Constitution may try to impose severe limits on gun rights. All treaties must be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, and that's not about to happen in the case of the unratified Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), particularly after the 2014 election that gave the GOP Senate control. The same, of course, could have been said about the Kyoto Protocol and other climate change deals that mandate that governments tie their...

It is not uncommon for people to use guns to defend against aggressive dogs.  In this case, it was the owner who shot the dog, so there are few legal complications.   What is interesting is that only a little over a year ago, the possession of the gun in Chicago would likely have been illegal.   From cbslocal : The 26-year-old man was in lawful possession of the weapon and will not face charges, according to police. All handguns had to be registered in Chicago, and if the registration lapsed on handguns, you were not allowed to re-register them.   A...

Video at link.

Last Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder testified before a House appropriations subcommittee on behalf of his department's proposed budget for FY2015. Apparently, Holder didn't think anyone would read his written submission, because he all-but-admitted that Obama intends to implement a Universal Gun Registry by executive fiat.He also asked Congress to help fund so-called “smart gun” technology, which would prevent a gun from firing unless the shooter is wearing an accompanying bracelet or ring.“Smart guns” are a dumb ideaGiven that “smart gun” technology only works about 80 percent of the time -- according to the New Jersey Institute of Technology --...

A new gun law coming in 2014 has gun owners stocking up on long guns before a new registry begins. Even though the law is at least temporarily boosting his bottom line, Just Guns owner John Deaser isn’t a fan. He says requiring people to register their rifles and shotguns is an unnecessary invasion of privacy. In the last week of 2013, he says sales of long guns are up 30 to 50 percent. The registry goes into effect on Jan. 1, and would require long gun owners to register their weapons like handgun owners already do. It would track...

In 1996, in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the modern Olympics, the German government issued a set of four stamps. One of these celebrates Alfred and Gustav Flatow, cousins, who were gold medalists in the 1896 Olympics. Alfred took the first in the parallel bars and with his cousin also won gold for the German team's overall performance. In 1932, Alfred Flatow registered three handguns, as decreed by the harsh gun control laws of the Weimar Republic that were drawn amid the violence and chaos of the aftermath of World War I. The Weimar Republican grew out of...

Second Amendment: The Senate is unlikely to ratify a United Nations arms treaty signed by John Kerry, but gun control zealots will use it as justification for "common sense" infringements on our constitutional right. The secretary of state signed the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty on Wednesday despite repeated indications that it would be dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate. One warning was a letter from Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., that said the treaty would be rejected just like "other U.N.-sponsored treaties which threaten our country's sovereignty." Inhofe reminded Kerry that the pact would "collect dust alongside the Law...

WASHINGTON – Asserting the Senate’s constitutional role on treaties, U.S. Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn., ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, in a letter today warned the Obama administration against taking any action to implement the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty without Senate advice and consent. “The ATT raises significant legislative and constitutional questions. Any act to implement this treaty, provisionally or otherwise, before the Congress provides its advice and consent would be fundamentally inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution, law, and practice,” said Corker. Full text of the letter is included below and in the attached document. Dear President Obama,...

Via jigsaw in #GBC… Greens launch $350m guns buyback plan: THE Greens want to spend more than $350 million to ban semi-automatic handguns and buy them back from their owners. But the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA) said that would not affect the guns used by drug gangs for drive-by shootings in western Sydney.Greens leader Christine Milne said gun violence could not be tackled without taking guns off the streets.“We need strong action to reduce the number of handguns falling into the wrong hands. They have become the firearm of choice for criminals in Australia, especially in the drug...

Before Stalin could confiscate the guns he needed a national gun registry. In April the United Nations passed sweeping legislation that will regulate the international arms trade and could lead to a national registry in the United States. Barack Obama is reportedly going to sign the treaty this month while Congress is on vacation. In April the United Nations passed sweeping legislation that will regulate the international arms trade and could lead to a national registry in the United States. Barack Obama is reportedly going to sign the treaty this month while Congress is on vacation. Ammoland reported: You heard...

Your guns are in danger. Obama has stopped defending the Second Amendment. He did not get his gun control agenda passed in the Senate. So, he’s unconstitutionally trying to use the United Nations to control your guns. Don’t let him. Obama is getting dangerously close to signing the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. If he signs this treaty and the Senate ratifies it, the Second Amendment is toast. And your guns will be in the control of dictators around the world. This sounds like a bad movie or a conspiracy theory, and I wish it were. But it’s real. 130...

A new Cook County Sheriff’s team is crisscrossing the suburbs to seize guns from thousands of people whose Firearm Owner’s Identification Cards have been revoked. More than 3,000 people in Cook County have failed to surrender their revoked FOID cards to the state. Sheriff Tom Dart said he thinks many of them continue to possess firearms.

Confiscation? What are you talking about? We would never….. Posted on July 22, 2013 by Miguel Part of a letter from the friendly folks at NYPD, Licensing Division to NY City Gun Owners: See? If you surrender your weapon (under threat of coming down on your sorry ass with all the power that the City of NY and Mayor Bloomberg can exercise) , it cannot be confiscation! Now, who are you gonna believe? Us or them paranoid rednecks from the NRA? Related Article on Gun Watch: Gun Registration is Gun Confiscation 

As the Obama administration pushes for stronger gun laws in the United States, Canada is moving toward entirely eliminating its controversial gun registry program. Many critics have noted that gun registries place additional burdens on honest citizens looking to own firearms, while opening them up to politically motivated targeting of the kind recently revealed in the United States when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) admitted it had been targeting conservatives for extra scrutiny...

In the near future, Americans who own or want guns likely will be subject to rafts of new questions from social scientists, medical researchers and law enforcement officials intent to discover just what guns they own, why they own them and what they intend to use them for — not to mention where and how they keep them. They will also likely have more researchers poring over such issues as whether childhood education programs against gun violence actually work; whether there actually is any relationship between violence in the media and in real life; and whether the safety plans that...