Free Republic

Gun rights advocates said Thursday that they had filed a federal lawsuit to block Maryland's new gun control laws from going into effect next week, arguing that restrictions on assault weapons and large magazines infringe on their constitutional rights. The gun rights advocates, who include individual citizens, organizations and gun shops, say the Second Amendment and case law make it clear that they are legally allowed to own military-style assault rifles and magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. In their lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Maryland, which the office of Gov. Martin O'Malley confirmed was filed Thursday, they...

Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy has just released a study of the relative effects of stringent gun laws. They found that a country like Luxenbourg, which bans all guns has a murder rate that is 9 times higher than Germany, where there are 30,000 guns per 100,000 people. They also cited a study by the U.S.National Academy of Sciences, which studied 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and it failed to find one gun control initiative that worked. In fact, in many cases it found that violence is very often lower, where guns are more readily...

Harry Reid has vowed to continue working on extended background checks for gun owners, but concedes that he doesn't have the votes to pass it. But Vice President Joe Biden claimed that several republicans told him they had changed their mind. Where are they. In the wake of the Washington Naval Yard shootings, many democrats were hopeful to pass new gun legislation.

Mayor Bloomberg of New York has made a claim that 7 children are murdered with a gun every day of the year. (2555) For the purpose of determining children, the numbers are usually ages 1 through 14. But according to Center For Disease Control and Prevention's 2011 National Vital Statistics Report, the number of children murdered between the ages of 1 and 4 are 370 for the country. Murders of children 5 to 14 is 269. And that's all murders, not just gun deaths. Therefore the number of children killed would be less than 1.7 a day.

Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy has just released a study of the relative effects of stringent gun laws. They found that a country like Luxenbourg, which bans all guns has a murder rate that is 9 times higher than Germany, where there are 30,000 guns per 100,000 people. They also cited a study by the U.S.National Academy of Sciences, which studied 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and it failed to find one gun control initiative that worked. In fact, in many cases it found that violence is very often lower, where guns are more readily...

Michael Bloomberg is the mayor of New York and a media mogul who weekends in Bermuda and whose net worth is an estimated $27 billion. Victor Head runs a plumbing business with his brother in Pueblo, Colo. The two clashed from a distance Tuesday in the Colorado gun recalls, and Head gave the billionaire a righteous drubbing. The defeat of two pro-gun control Colorado state senators in recall elections sends a message that should be heard all the way back on the Upper East Side, and maybe even in Hamilton. It wasn’t too long ago that Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal...

Rights: Colorado voters on Tuesday ousted two leading supporters of stricter gun control laws, saying "ready, aim, fired" to those who would deny movie patrons and college women the right to armed self-defense. One would think that Colorado, the site of the tragedies at Columbine and the Aurora movie theater, the purple state where President Obama accepted his first nomination amidst faux Greek columns, would be the least receptive of states for the arguments of Second Amendment defenders. Colorado state Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron found out differently on Tuesday as they were ousted by gun rights...

Since George Zimmerman’s exoneration, Stand Your Ground laws have been under attack. President Obama injected race into the discussion by referring to the “pain” the black community feels over the Zimmerman verdict, and by claiming that the outcome would have been different had Trayvon Martin been white. Speaking at the NAACP convention, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder claimed Stand Your Ground laws “undermine public safety” and “sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods.” Both want these enhanced self-defense laws “reviewed.” (Read: “repealed.”) This rhetoric culminated in state Representative Alan Williams sponsoring a bill to repeal Florida’s Stand Your Ground.Wildly misleading...

As with the Romney campaign, I spent some time knocking on doors in support of the Sen. Morse recall effort. As with Romney, walking through unfamiliar neighborhoods and speaking with complete strangers is an education everyone should experience. Unlike with Romney, the Morse recall campaign is a winner, driven by motivated enthusiastic volunteers. Political observers nationwide know Colorado Senate President John Morse as a leader in passing the state's radical anti-gun laws. Thanks to Morse, nearly every modern pistol is now illegal, parents may not lend weapons to their children, and several hundred manufacturing jobs are leaving the State. The...

I was born in Chengdu, China. When I was growing up, the Communist Party controlled everything. There were no choices of any sort. We were all poor except the elite. The local government rationed everything from pork to rice, sugar, and flour because there were not enough supplies. We were allowed only a kilogram of pork per month for our family of five. We lived in two rooms, without heat in the winter. I got impetigo during the cold, humid winters. There were eight families living around our courtyard, and we all had to share one bathroom (a hole in...

Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy has just released a study of the relative effects of stringent gun laws. They found that a country like Luxenbourg, which bans all guns has a murder rate that is 9 times higher than Germany, where there are 30,000 guns per 100,000 people. They also cited a study by the U.S.National Academy of Sciences, which studied 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and it failed to find one gun control initiative that worked. In fact, in many cases it found that violence is very often lower, where guns are more readily...

The gun confiscation advocates at “Coalition to Stop Gun Violence” have outdone even themselves with this disgraceful hit piece on Stand Your Ground legislation. This 1:27 video “recreates” the George Zimmerman shooting of Trayvon Martin as only the left can do it–-by leaving out all of the facts in order to promote an agenda.

Actually, this law wasn’t intended to punish crime victims, that’s the result of an ideology that demonizes legal gun owners–even to the point that they are considered more dangerous than violent sexual predators with known criminal records: On Sunday, Governor Pat Quinn signed Illinois House Bill 1189, a law that will, among other things, impose requirements–on pain of criminal charges–on victims of crime. If your gun is stolen, and you fail to promptly notify the police, you are now the criminal. Oh, by the way–confused by the initial description on the Illinois General Assembly website–that the bill “amends the Sex...

A little heralded Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy study holds some devastating news for those who are trying to take guns from America’s population. Here are the facts the study found. The overall message of the report is that nations with private gun ownership have less crime. In the period 1991 to 2011 gun ownership rose steadily; murders by guns fell 39% and firearms related crimes dropped 69%. The nine European countries with the fewest guns have a combined murder rate three times higher than the nine European countries with the most guns in private hands. With rare...

If you are a gun rights supporter and already know about the court case of the District of Columbia v. Heller, then go to this link and take "ACTION: Urge your Senators to oppose the anti-gun 'nuclear option' to blow up the Senate rules. Tell them that any vote in favor of weakening the filibuster rules for judicial confirmations will ultimately result in a reversal of the Heller case and [be] a body-blow to the Second Amendment."If you're unfamiliar with the Heller case, read on. From the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) in 2008: ... the District...

--IMAGE HERE-- If you live in New Jersey and are named Robert Johnson, Kevin Johnson, James Rogers, or Mary Smith then I have bad news for you. Governor Chris Christie just signed a bill making you a second class citizen. “Are you kidding me?” No I am not. With a stroke of the pen, Governor Christie has stripped away the constitutional rights of thousands of New Jersey residents with no due process whatsoever. “How did he do that?” Among the 10 gun control bills that the New Jersey governor signed on August 8th was Assembly Bill 3687. This bill prohibits...

Starbucks seems an unlikely dueling ground in the national debate over guns, but the ubiquitous coffee chain Friday will once again find itself squarely in the cross hairs in the battle between gun control and gun rights advocates. More than 2,000 gun rights activists plan to visit their local Starbucks with their sidearms for a national “Starbucks Appreciation Day.”

A dear friend (a flag-waving gun-toting conservative) who is unfortunately going through a bitter divorce informed me yesterday that their court proceedings took a very amusing turn. The soon-to-be-ex-wife's lawyer was attempting to paint my friend as unstable and unfit to care for their four kids (two their own, two from her previous marriage). To accomplish this, the liar-for-hire cited this very blog as evidence!Why?Because the profile pic at VM's Facebook page is this:Yes, it's true: This pic features ... gasp ... guns! (Not that it makes any difference that my friend and his truly unstable wife are themselves gun owners.) This...

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...

You wouldn’t give up your life or property without a fight if a criminal assaulted you — not if you had any way to fight back. Nor should you give up your right of self-defense when enemies of that right assault you — not when you have so much democratic armament at your disposal. Foes of gun rights have long pretended that the Second Amendment’s explicit ban on infringing “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” pertains to something else altogether, maybe the right to reupholster furniture. But in 2008, a lawsuit financed and led by businessman-turned-lawyer...