Free Republic

With Obama&'s State of the Union address coming up, it’s easy to breath a sigh of relief that another year is behind us, and he only has three more to go.These are the three most dangerous years.His time is running out, and he knows it. Obama’s rough 2013 prompts a new blueprint: An internal White House assessment concludes that President Obama must distance himself from a recalcitrant Congress after being badly damaged last year by legislative failures, a government shutdown and his own missteps....As a result, Washington veterans have been brought into the West Wing to emphasize an executive style...

I have read through a number of accounts of Lobby Day at the Virginia Capitol at Richmond on 20 January.  I was drawn to study the event because of an account on wvtf public radio.   The account on wvtf said that competing crowds of people were lobbying in favor of second amendment rights and those who wish to restrict those rights, occurred on Tuesday.  I think the reporter simply got the day wrong, because all of the other coverage that I could find indicated the events occurred on Monday, 20 January, 2014. The orientation of the reporter for...

Not so fast, Andrew Cuomo. We see what you did there. After publicly bashing conservative New Yorkers as "extreme" people who have no place in his state, the intolerant Democratic governor wants to blame the media for his unmistakable contempt for those who oppose abortion, support gun rights and defend traditional marriage. Newsflash: Crapweasel politicians can backtrack and scapegoat, but they can't hide. When he railed against socially conservative Republican candidates in a radio interview last week, Cuomo hyperbolically singled out those he called "right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay" citizens. Sounding unapologetically purge-tastic, the governor said these political opponents "have no place...

New York governor Andrew Cuomo, whose desire to be the Democratic nominee for president of these United States is embarrassingly palpable, has decided that those who do not share his views on abortion (Hooray!), scary-looking firearms (Horrors!), and the various political demands attached to organized homosexuality (Hand on heart!) are untouchables — “They have no place in the state of New York,” he says, “because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”The governor needs to meet some New Yorkers.  

Emily Miller didn't start out as a gun girl. She wasn't a hunter, she wasn't a competitive shooter or a collector by any means. She was simply a woman who didn't feel safe. Here's how she put it in a "Washington Times" column: I want a gun. I don’t feel safe living in Washington, D.C. and want to protect myself. I’m starting today by going down to City Hall to find the gun permit office to tell them, “I want a gun.”

Last week, Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeals ruled that statutes originating in the Florida Legislature take precedence over regulations passed by local governments or state agencies. This authority to preempt local ordinances prevents counties, cities and townships from creating a patchwork quilt of regulations which most citizens would find impossible to obey. What the decision means is that the 12 state universities in Florida cannot overrule a 2011 law in which the Florida Legislature “…pre-empted the regulation of guns by local governments and state agencies.” (1) The lawsuit–Florida Carry Inc. and Alexandria Lainez vs. the University of North Florida–was...

Gun-rights advocates are having trouble digesting a social-media post from a senior advisor to Gov. John Hickenlooper that compares the right to bear arms with the right to bear a ham sandwich. “’Constitutional rights,’” yes. But #gunrights? Isn’t that like #hamsandwichrights or #lightbulbrights or #bombrights or #humanrights…wait,” says the message from Max Potter, the governor’s senior media adviser, on Twitter. Former Rep. Tom Tancredo, who’s running for the Republican nomination for governor, said the tweet seems to claim that “there is no Second Amendment,” and called on the governor to explain the message. “The tweet implies that the governor looks...

Second Amendment: A Florida appeals court rules that colleges can't ban students from having guns on campus for self-protection, bringing us one step closer to the day schools are predator-free, not-gun-free zones. Alexandria Lainez won't be able to carry her firearm around campus in her purse or book bag, but she can keep it in her car parked on campus, available for self-protection, or in case a madman decides to shoot up the University of North Florida. Florida's 1st Court of Appeals ruled that the school was violating a 2011 state law that pre-empted the regulation of guns by local...

Politics Of Sport: While ads featuring violent movies and video games regularly appear on NFL broadcasts, pro football has banned an ad supporting the Second Amendment. The NFL is within its rights, since Item 5 in its prohibited list of Super Bowl ad categories includes "Firearms, ammunition or other weapons; however, stores that sell firearms and ammunitions (e.g., outdoor stores and camping stores) will be permitted, provided they sell other products and the ads do not mention firearms, ammunition or other weapons." But the ad submitted twice by Daniel Defense does not sell firearms or one of the company's popular...

[ACTION: Urgent alert: Gun vote could come as soon as Monday in the House. Click here [http://cqrcengage.com/gunowners/app/write-a-letter?3&engagementId=33473] to email your Representative and Senators, and demand that they oppose Chuck Schumer's gun ban. And if you can call House offices today, all the better -- given that the House leadership is considering bringing up the renewal of the plastic gun ban very soon. You can call your Representative at 202-225-3121.] Urgent alert: Gun vote could come as soon as Monday in the House With 80,000,000 Americans poised to lose their employer-provided insurance plans, what would you think the Senate's number three...

This was inspired by this piece from Chicks on the Right. Their version was way too smart (low information voters Democrats can't say "centrifuge" much less know what it is), I had to dumb it down a bit :-)  

When I first saw this clip from Katie Pavlich, it reminded me of my own interview with Richard Dreyfuss nearly three years ago on the need to educate on civics and civility. Dreyfuss appears to have taken those issues to heart here in his appearance last night on Piers Morgan Tonight, in which he tells a somewhat stunned Morgan,” I don’t think the NRA is a villain.” And he directly rebuked Morgan’s entire oeuvre on the topic with his explanation — “I believe that’s a problem of the press, which started with an ‘us-them’ problem.”It’s an interesting platform on which...

Just in time to exploit the one-year anniversary of the Dec. 14 spree-shooting at Newtown, Conn., the December issue of the journal “Pediatrics” runs a study claiming that screen images of guns and gunplay make our children more violent. The study, “Gun Violence Trends in Movies,” authored by Dan Romer, Adolescent Communication Institute of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Brad J. Bushman, a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University, has already been cited in editorials calling for federal regulation of movies and video games. “It’s disturbing that PG-13 movies are filled with so much gun violence,”...

FULL TITLE: Man Fires Gun While Discussing Gun Rights In Vitamin Store, Flees Saying, "I Can't Go Down For This" A man in Wilkesboro, N.C. was engaged in a spirited discussion about gun rights when his gun went off Tuesday. The man has not been identified because, rather than stay and make a stand in favor of his right to bear arms, he hightailed it out of there. The incident happened in a GNC nutrition store on Winkler Street in Wilkesboro sometime around 6:50 pm in the evening. The customer was talking to an employee of the store at the...

<p>Four members of the Dallas chapter of the pro-gun control group Moms Demand Action were meeting inside the Blue Mesa Grill on Saturday when 40 members of the anti-gun control group Open Carry Texas arrived outside the restaurant armed.</p> <p>WHAT ARE THESE MEN DOING? No, they're not military defending our country or police responding to a mass shooting. They're members of Open Carry Texas and they showed up earlier today to protest a membership meeting being held by four members of Moms Demand Action inside a restaurant in Dallas. These men, armed with semi-automatic rifles, terrified customers and passersby.</p>

When New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the SAFE Act in January—what he referred to as “common sense” gun-control legislation—the law not only turned many law-abiding citizens into criminals, it also drove businesses and jobs out of the state. With a move to South Carolina, American Tactical Imports has become the third firearm company to relocate its operations from New York to more gun-friendly states. According to Guns.com: ATI is largely an importer and distributor of domestic firearms, although they do some manufacturing. They plan to move from Rochester to Summerville, a city on the outskirts of Charleston, starting next...

Maryland state police and federal agents used a search warrant in an unrelated criminal investigation to seize the private reporting files of an award-winning former investigative journalist for The Washington Times who had exposed problems in the Homeland Security Department’s Federal Air Marshal Service. Reporter Audrey Hudson said the investigators, who included an agent for Homeland’s Coast Guard service, took her private notes and government documents that she had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act during a predawn raid of her family home on Aug. 6. The documents, some which chronicled her sources and her work at the Times...

A desperate father has been banned from seeing his young son for four years after he was found with an unloaded gun he legally owned in the back of his car among his possessions as he moved house. Brian Aitken was arrested in 2009 as he was moving back from Colorado to New Jersey to be near his child after a divorce. He was later convicted of possessing a gun and sentenced to seven years' prison. Now the New York University graduate and digital media entrepreneur is using a crowdfunding website to raise funds so he can write a book...

It has been more than two weeks since Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz issued a "respectful request" for customers to stop bringing guns into his company's coffee shops, and the response by and large has been one of courteous compliance. Considering how polarized and emotional America's gun debates usually get, some people were sure Starbucks was in for weeks of controversy. "The backlash and boycott talk has already begun," reported the Los Angeles Times the day Schultz's open letter appeared. Entrepreneur.com's Ray Hennessey, an experienced business editor, warned that Starbucks risked "alienating a large portion of its customer base." That didn't...

Just as Secretary of State John Kerry signed the controversial U.N. Arms Trade Treaty last week, setting up yet another legislative battle over guns, we interviewed one of the leading women on the issue of gun rights in America. After a home invasion, Washington Times opinion editor Emily Miller navigated the convoluted, bureaucratic process of purchasing and registering a handgun in the nation’s capital. Her experience formed the basis of “Emily Gets Her Gun …But Obama Wants to Take Yours,” a book to help “educate the public on the facts of gun control and gun violence.” She is convinced that...