Free Republic

The North Carolina Senate took the House-passed HB 937 and made a good gun reform bill into a near great one. The North Carolina Sheriffs' Association in now balking on passage of the bill due to the elimination of the archaic and racist pistol purchase permit system run out of each county's sheriffs' department. As the alert below from Grass Roots North Carolina makes clear, what they really object to is a loss of power and a loss of revenue. News stories about the recent shooting in Greenville, North Carolina are now trumpeting that the Pitt County Sheriffs' Department...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Republican lawmakers have introduced a new wave of legislation that would continue to expand gun rights in Ohio. Among the proposed changes are measures that would allow public officials to carry firearms in the Statehouse and other "non-secured" public buildings, ban law enforcement from melting down confiscated guns and loosen the state's definition of "automatic firearm." The fresh legislation piggybacks on years of significant changes to Ohio's gun laws, which began in 2004 when Republican Gov. Bob Taft signed a law legalizing concealed handguns. The proposals have gun advocates rejoicing and opponents reeling. House Bill 191, introduced...

It is getting ever harder to do business in the United States, argues Niall Ferguson, and more stimulus won't help: Our institutions need fixing. Not everyone is an entrepreneur. Still, everyone should try—if only once—to start a business. After all, it is small and medium enterprises that are the key to job creation. There is also something uniquely educational about sitting at the desk where the buck stops, in a dreary office you've just rented, working day and night with a handful of employees just to break even. As an academic, I'm just an amateur capitalist. Still, over the past...

Do you support Routt County Sheriff Garrett Wiggins’ decision to join a lawsuit opposing new gun legislation in Colorado?

In a stunning sign of the political resurgence of bankers, Wall Street lobbyists not only have the ear of lawmakers, they have their pens as well. Rather than leaving it to members of Congress to draft legislation that softens financial regulations, bank lobbyists are helping to write it themselves, emails reviewed by The New York Times show. One bill that sailed through the House Financial Services Committee this month was essentially written by lobbyists for giant Citigroup. After the House committee drafted a bill that would force regulators to exempt trades of certain types of derivative trading from the new...

I wanted to give you a quick summary on the 3 urgent bills that need attention IMMEDIATELY. They are: Senate Bill 346 (SB 346) is designed to discourage people from giving to Tea Party groups who wish to replace RINO's with conservatives. It is a Saul Alinsky device to identify donors so they can be targeted and then discouraged from giving to conservatives. It is incredible, as the WSJ points out in an editorial in today's paper, that a Governor in Texas would even contemplate such a thing. But such is the fear in the RINO Establishment's nostrils. It not...

Since the Reno Gazette Journal can't be linked, here is a short blip from today concerning Nevada and Universal Background Checks. A bill mandating background checks almost every time a gun changes hands has cleared the Nevada Senate. After a lengthy debate Wednesday, senators voted 11-10 along party lines advancing SB221. It now heads to the Assembly. Several Democrats say the bill is the start of better gun policies in the Silver State. In an effort to eliminate any cost to the state, the bill was changed to funnel background checks on all private sales directly to the National Instant...

Tensions were high as both sides of the gun control aisle spoke during a Senate Law and Public Safety Committee held earlier this month in Trenton, NJ. As the hearing progressed, gun-rights supporters grew frustrated at the legislators move to amp measures that would only pertain to law-abiding gun owners and not the criminals they aimed to stop. In a particularly heated exchanged, 2nd Amendment advocate James Kaleda, 36, was asked to keep his comments relative to bills being heard. “I am on the bill. And I will be heard,” Kaleda said. But Committee Chairman Donald Norcross (D-Camden) called Kaleda...

I thought that stench smelled familiar... Heritage Foundation   h/t Doug Ross

Looks like you've lost The National Review, Senator... More- RUBIO: Gang o' 8 Immigration Bill 'Might Have Trouble in the Senate' and 'Can't Pass the House' Rubio Flushing His Political Aspirations -and the Entire GOP- Down the Toilet _________________________________________________________________ -h/t Drudge-

The Boston Marathon Bombing, where three people were killed and 264 wounded, many with legs or feet blown off, continues to be a big media story, but we are still waiting for answers to many questions. How did our government miss so many clues that the Tsarnaev brothers were a deadly danger to Americans? They came into the United States as visitors from Kazakhstan, where many ethnic Chechens live without persecution and then cooked up a claim to be refugees, which was a fraud. After a few years, the father returned to Dagestan, Russia, where he now lives safely. Once...

Author's Note: check out www.letterstoayoungprogressive.com for a free chapter of my latest book. Students and their parents need to be warned about the latest serious threat to liberty on America's college campuses. They have probably already heard of campus speech codes, anti-discrimination clauses, and sexual harassment tribunals. The latest threat takes the form of "disorderly conduct" hearings. Many readers are wondering what exactly constitutes disorderly conduct. The more appropriate question might be "what does not?" Of course, it is natural for students to have conflict in college. Many are away from home for the first time and they are...

When I heard the news that the Senate had failed to pass a Universal Background Check, I was at a police seminar on the topic of active shooters. The panelists had agreed that “active shooter” was a poor descriptor, one noting that some attackers use other weapons, such as the blade-wielder in the recent Texas case.

Amid all the heated, emotional advocacy of gun control, have you ever heard even one person present convincing hard evidence that tighter gun control laws have in fact reduced murders?

As President Barack Obama pulls out all the stops to push his gun control agenda, even using Air Force One to fly parents of Sandy Hook victims to lobby on Capitol Hill, the man who launched the first inquiry about Operation Fast and Furious more than two years ago may be poised to derail the president’s runaway train. Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley is still working out the details of an alternative bill that, according to spokesperson Beth Levine, will emphasize mental health, protecting veterans from losing their gun rights, and improving school security. It will not erode Second Amendment rights...

This weekend Knife Rights issued an alert regarding a repeal of the ban on switchblades in Texas. They are asking that those who reside, work, or travel to Texas contact the legislators below urging their support for HB 1862 which would repeal the ban. I'm glad to see that Knife Rights is working so hard on the second front for the Second Amendment. In Texas, Knife Rights supported HB1862 has been scheduled for a hearing this Tuesday, April 9, before the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence. HB1862, sponsored by Representative Harold Dutton Jr., will repeal the antiquated, senseless ban...

UPDATE (April 2, 2013) – Yesterday was a landmark day for Alaskan knife owners. HB 33 and SB 11 were combined. What is needed now before the session ends on April 14 is for HB 33 to pass the Senate and receive a concurrence in the House. Doing so will make it legal for an adult 18 years and older to own a Switchblades and Gravity knife. The American Knife & Tool Institute continues to stay in touch with Rep. Mark Neuman’s office to provide support. Alaska Bill Would Better Define Gravity and Switchblade Knives and Enact Knife Preemption“House Bill...

We humans irrationally think we’re rational. We think that we decide how to behave by weighing the pros and cons. In reality, the strongest influence on our decisions is the example of the people around us — even, oddly enough, when they are imaginary. =snip== It seems that almost anything you would want to nag people about can be more effectively done by instead telling them how much everyone else is doing the right thing. If you want young people to vote, don’t tell them how many people aren’t voting. Tell them how many are. Safe sex, anyone? Hand washing?...

Missoula, MT --(Ammoland.com)- A lot of action is happening on MSSA bills right now. The full rundown is below, so I’ll only cite bill numbers for the ones which need your action. Contacting the Governor: You can email Governor Bullock at mailto:governor@mt.gov, or use the message form at http://governor.mt.gov/contact.aspx If emailing, put the requested action in the shortest possible Subject line, such as “Please approve SB 145.” With either email or Webform, BE NICE. You may say you feel strongly, but do not threaten or browbeat. Keep your email or Webform body to three short sentences (one short sentence would...

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) wants to create a "virtual Congress," where lawmakers would leverage videoconferencing and other remote work technology to conduct their daily duties in Washington from their home districts. Under a resolution Pearce introduced on Thursday, lawmakers would be able to hold hearings, debate and vote on legislation virtually from their district offices.