Free Republic

In 2012, the voters of Louisiana approved a constitutional amendment to the state Constitution that removed the constitutional provision that gave the State the power to regulate concealed weapons.   It added the requirement that the court use the strongest level of judicial review, strict scrutiny, for Amendment 2 cases.   There is a a good discussion of the history behind this amendment at the Volokh Conspiracy, by David Kopel.  The amendment passed with over 73 percent of the vote. The court has already upheld bans on the possession of handguns by minors without parental approval and on felons on...

149 years ago today, the Civil War all but came to an end with the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to Union forces headed by Ulysses S. Grant. While a few battles were still to be fought and many other Confederate units or forces would surrender over the following weeks and months, Lee's surrender marked the end of the war in the Eastern Theater.

Former President Jimmy Carter championed racial equality Tuesday evening, saying "there's no difference with people in the eyes of God" during a 50th anniversary celebration of the Civil Rights Act. Carter, 89, hailed the landmark 1964 law that outlawed discrimination against minorities and women as a stepping stone, but insisted there's still more work to do. "We're pretty much dormant now. We accept self-congratulations about the wonderful 50th anniversary — which is wonderful — but we feel like Lyndon Johnson did it and we don't have to do anything anymore," said Carter, the first president to speak at the three-day...

Tuesday, April 08, 2014 Islam Is What Happens When Civilization Loses Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Saudi Arabia and Qatar aren't talking to each other. Syria and Turkey are shooting at each other. Not only are the Shiites and Sunnis killing each other in Syria, but the Sunni groups have been killing each other for some time now. There are even two or three Al Qaedas fighting each other over which of them is the real Al Qaeda while, occasionally, denying that they are the real Al Qaeda. There's something about Syria that splits down everything...

I kept looking at him suspiciously, because I remembered our neighbour who stated (OK he was completely drunk) that he had brilliant plan to end this siege. When we asked him how, he explained that he will shoot at the airplanes, and when they respond to that they will bomb whole area and everything will end. One of most stupid things that I ever heard. It was like shooting the man who brings you sandwich when you are hungry but desperate folks will talk lot of nonsense. “I am just thinking how funny and how far away we are to...

All three can be good or bad depending on how much, how and for what used. That a little bit might be good does not mean that a lot more will be better.RadiationMany years ago, in the mid to late 1940's and early 1950's when I was a young boy, shoe stores had X-ray machines permitting one to view images of the bones in one's feet. Health hazards were recognized but generally ignored. Although most of the dose was directed at the feet, a substantial amount would scatter or leak in all directions. Shielding materials were sometimes displaced to improve image quality, to make the machine...

A massive 3,800-year-old fortress that protected the Gihon Spring was uncovered in the City of David. Photo: Eli Mandelbaum, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.Excavations around the Gihon Spring in the City of David have uncovered a massive 3,800-year-old fortress. Called the “Spring Citadel” by archaeologists, the discovery is part of a 15-year excavation led by Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukrun of the Israel Antiquities Authority. This enormous 18th-century B.C.E. structure that isolates and protects the Gihon Spring is believed to be the fortress described in the Book of Samuel that King David...

Title is the subject, link is to the results. Go to slashdot.org if you want to take the poll, it changes every day, but the results should hang around alot longer than the poll.

And, I do have a sensitivity toward people in the military as well as civilians who have developed some sort of "nervous condition." I was medevaced out of Vietnam after 16 months there while serving  in the Marine Corps. At that time, if an enlistee even looked cross-eyed at a superior officer, or showed any sort of deviance - they would be "quickly and efficiently" jailed, hospitalized, or just booted out of the military. IOW soldiers like the most recent Fort Hood killer Ivan Lopez would have stuck out like a sore thumb in yesterday's military, but not in...

Sunday, April 06, 2014 Government Power and Evil Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog We are not a violent society. We are a society sheltered from violence. No one in Rwanda spends  time wondering what kind of man would murder people. They probably live next door to him. If your neighborhood is diverse enough, you might be unfortunate enough to live next door to war criminals all the way from Eastern Europe to Africa. Guns are how we misspell evil. Guns are how we avoid talking about the ugly realities of human nature while building sandcastles on...

From Kim Kardashian’s butt to Miley Cyris’ obscene gyrations, clearly our American culture has popped, exploded, gone to hell in a hand basket, and is just plain offensive and out-of-control. Once again, the NATIONAL ENQUIRER tells it the way it is by featuring the re-release of the iconic art book WHITE TRASH UNCUT by outstanding photographer Christopher Makos. (1). His first edition is available for a whopping $500 a copy, but this second release is selling at $50 each and includes 40 new pix of the decline and fall of Western Civilization in full disgust. Makos is “the first photographer...

In swift reaction to North Korea's most recent flouting of international law, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced today from Japan that the U.S. will deploy two additional AEGIS ballistic missile defense ships to Japan by 2017 as part of an effort to bolster protection in the region. The response comes in wake of Pyongyang's repeated provocations, including recently test-firing two ballistic missiles, as US President Barack Obama hosted a landmark Japan-South Korea summit. The move is meant to send a strong signal, not only to Kim Jong-Un, but Russian leader Vladamir Putin as well. Hagel, in Japan to meet...

The Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division is very proud to announce the release of more than 20,000 cartographic works as high resolution downloads. We believe these maps have no known US copyright restrictions.* To the extent that some jurisdictions grant NYPL an additional copyright in the digital reproductions of these maps, NYPL is distributing these images under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. The maps can be viewed through the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections page, and downloaded (!), through the Map Warper. First, create an account, then click a map title and...

Safety Breifing Before Eureka Springs Constitutional Carry/Act 746 walk Open Carry Walkers in Eureka Springs As has become the norm in Arkansas, the open carry/constitutional carry/ celebrate Act 746 walk in Eureka springs did not cause any drama or trauma. Dozens of people participated in the event on 29 March.  In spite of concerns, and some hostility expressed during a city council meeting prior to the event, there did not appear to be any significant opposition to the walk.   No one protested the open carriers.   One of the event participants actively looked for signs in businesses banning guns or...

    Best of news/views/opinion for the 'new media' right...  

Friday, April 04, 2014 Friday Afternoon Roundup - Rogue Nightmares Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog from the People's Cube GOING ROGUE Saddam had invaded other countries and cultivated terrorists, while the governments that Obama helped overthrow, aside from Gaddafi, were not expansionistic, were not obsessed with building up WMD’s and had helped maintain regional stability. Bush had sought to stabilize the Middle East by removing Saddam. Obama instead destabilized it by trying to remove every government that was in any way friendly to the United States and was not covered by the umbrella of the Saudi...

Dan Zimmerman at The Truth About Guns asks Could Connecticut Gun Laws Spark Another Waco? There’s been a lot of discussion among members of the Armed Intelligentsia lately about how Connecticut’s finest might proceed if they decide to confiscate unregistered guns from the state’s 100,000 or more newly-minted felons. The level of concern is evidenced by daily long comment threads, speculative posts by people who are not members of law enforcement, and even a couple of contributed opinions from the LEO community. The rational consensus seems to be that if the gun-grab order were given, cops would pinch a...

The process itself, rather than peace, has become the goal.Senior Palestinian Authority officialA bit of historyThe notion that "the end justifies the means" is bad even when the end sought might be seen as beneficial. Transitory peace might be a beneficial intermediate end if the price of achieving it is not excessive. We should have learned about that shortly after 1938, when Prime Minister Chamberlain's deal with Herr Hitler allowed German expansion into Czechoslovakia and produced a naval agreement between Britain and Germany. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO725Hbzfls?feature=player_detailpage] Video linkPM Chamberlain said this later the same day: My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has...

Angelina Jolie, is like the criminal in a low budget film who always returns to the scene of the crime. Jolie is shameless in returning to Bosnia after her propagandized rape movie entitled, In The Land of Blood and Honey—an irresponsible piece of film footage costing $50 million to produce that has failed miserably at the box office earning less then $5 million. Did she return to Srebrenica to mourn the dead or to rehabilitate her damaged career? Bringing with her William Hague, the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is like bringing a fox to a...

Current Nebraska law grants broad powers to the governors, allowing them to ban the sale or transport of firearms during declared emergencies.   Police and other government agents confiscated thousands of guns in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.  Some troops refused to confiscate guns. A current scandal in Canada involves the Royal Canadian Mounted Police breaking down doors to confiscate firearms in High River Canada after they had cordoned off the town during a flood.  To prevent future confiscations, second amendment supporters, including the NRA, pushed for legislative guarantees that such abuses would not occur again.  Over two...