Free Republic

The Rhode Island General Assembly is considering a nine-bill package of gun control legislation ­— including a statewide assault weapons ban — that Gov. Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 announced with other legislative and community leaders at a press conference last Tuesday afternoon. “This is a conversation that’s taking place right now in every state and at the national level,” said Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport. The bills are the product of months of collaboration between legislators and law enforcement officials, she said. The call to action was in part inspired by the Dec. 14 elementary school shooting in Newtown,...

Key measures of New York's tough new gun law have kicked in, meaning owners of firearms now reclassified as assault weapons are required to register their guns. There are also new limits on the number of bullets allowed in magazines. The new provisions took effect Monday. New York's affiliate of the National Rifle Association says it expects to ask a federal judge late in the afternoon to immediately halt the magazine limit. The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association says the law violates the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens "to keep commonly possessed firearms." Association president Tom King says...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released a report documenting attempted abuses of federal power by the Obama administration on Tuesday, saying the administration “knows virtually no bounds.” Cruz points to Obama’s own Supreme Court appointees, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, to make his case: "When President Obama’s own Supreme Court nominees join their colleagues in unanimously rejecting the Administration’s call for broader federal power six times in just over one year, the inescapable conclusion is that the Obama Administration’s view of federal power knows virtually no bounds,” the senator’s report said. The Obama administration’s over-reaching includes attempts to electronically track Americans...

Now reporting on the NY Lewis case in which a gun owner had his guns and LTC confiscated. As the facts emerge, it is much worse than we thought. The state SAFE Act cancels the federal HIPPA Act (Surprise!), which is supposed to keep your health info private. No one has yet admitted who supplied to the NY State Police information that at some time Lewis took a mood leveling medicine. The REALLY scary part is that under SAFE, any "healthcare provider" -- physician, nurse, physical therapist, personal care assistant, pharmacy technician, LPN, elder day care visitor -- can turn...

The Internal Revenue Service doesn't believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail. Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers says that Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications -- meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge. That places the IRS at odds with a growing sentiment among many judges and legislators who believe that Americans' e-mail messages should be protected from warrantless search and seizure. They say e-mail should be protected by the same Fourth Amendment privacy standards that...

Mark Levin is very angry about the Democrats and Republicans teaming up to 're-write' the 2nd Amendment. He calls upon Americans to contact their senators. God bless Mark Levin. Click excerpt link for audio ->

AMHERST, N.Y. (WIVB) - The NYS SAFE Act is billed as a necessary law to protect the public and keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people. But Hamburg attorney Jim Tresmond says his client was notified by letter that his gun permit was suspended upon the recommendation of State Police, who learned the man is on anti-anxiety medication."Claiming that he had taken some psychotropic medications, and that he no longer could be eligible for the pistol permit," Tresmond said.The permit holder lives in Amherst and Tresmond accompanied the man as he turned in his seven handguns used...

Under the Patriot Act” the DHS has the absolute right to seize, without any warrant whatsoever, any and all customer bank accounts, to make “periodic and unannounced” visits to any bank to open and inspect the contents of “selected safe deposit boxes.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper is expected to sign into law a bill that would give the U.S. Secret Service "limited" police power while operating in the state of Colorado. The bill, SB 13-013, which has already been passed by both the Colorado House and Senate, has sparked a firestorm of controversy because of fears that the proposed power could be used by Secret Service agents, acting on behalf of the Obama administration, to arrest sheriffs in Colorado who refuse to enforce unconstitutional federal gun controls.

When certified firearms instructor Shawn Moore posted a photo of his 11 year-old son on Facebook the last thing he expected was a SWAT style raid on his home. The picture showed his son, a licensed hunter, holding his new birthday gift, a .22 caliber rifle. While Moore’s son proudly displaying his semi-automatic personal defense rifle was completely legal, an anonymous tipster contacted New Jersey’s Department of Children and Family Services and declared that the Moore family was neglecting and abusing their child, an unfounded accusation that led to the mobilization of local police who were apparently not at all...

And, The Troy Record also has news on the tip line on their Facebook page – It is real. There is actually someone there to take your tips… So that state officials can come take your guns. NY State has established a toll-free tip line – 1-855-GUNSNYS (1-855- 486-7697) to encourage residents to report illegal firearm possession. The tip line also allows for information to be submitted via text – individuals can text GUNTIP and their message to CRIMES (274637). The New York State Police staff the tip line 24 hours a day. Upon receiving a call, troopers will solicit...

<p>Mod note: the source has changed the title and the body of this article after this was posted.</p> <p>Forget police drones flying over your house. How about police coming inside, once a year, to have a look around? As Orwellian as that sounds, it isn’t hypothetical. The notion of police home inspections was introduced in a bill last week in Olympia.</p>

A news article was sent to me earlier this week. It appeared in the Beaufort Gazette. The article stated that later this week about 150 Marines and Navy personnel will hold realistic urban training in Jasper County, South Carolina. This was one of many joint military-local law enforcement exercises that had come to my attention in less than one month. Held in cities across the U.S., they were becoming more common and more intense. But why? Why train in populated towns and cities where accidents could produce unnecessary casualties? The Gazette further reported that the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit will...

Per Fox, Obama knows he will not get gun control through Congress so he is preparing to order federal agencies to require private citizens to obey his gun control measures as a prerequisite for the public to do business with the government.

Already, there are signs that Governor Cuomo and his allies underestimated the pushback. As draconian, ill-advised, and possibly unconstitutional as the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (NY SAFE) anti-gun law was when it was hastily signed into law, it might have been far worse — this according to a New York legislator who fought against the bill.Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin has released documentation showing rejected Democratic proposals for the NY SAFE Act. They included these: Confiscation of all firearms arbitrarily redefined as “assault weapons”Labeling semi-automatic shotguns as “assault weapons” if they can hold more than five rounds or have...

President Obama is tripling the number of Cabinet agencies with gun control law enforcement responsibilities in his new bid to track guns, adding six agencies to the three typically included--Justice, Homeland Security and Defense. Section 1.e of his executive order released Wednesday adds State, Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Energy, and Veterans Affairs. It reads: "For purposes of this memorandum, 'Federal law enforcement agencies' means the Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense, Justice, the Interior, Agriculture, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security, and such other agencies and offices that regularly recover firearms in the course of their criminal investigations as the President...

People familiar with the internal negotiations say Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders have a tentative deal to enact the nation's first gun control measure following the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

The Internal Revenue Service warned employers in a new regulatory proposal not to come up with clever schemes to avoid Obamacare’s employer health insurance mandate. The IRS said it would soon issue “anti-abuse rules” to discourage employers from taking advantage of any regulatory loopholes. “The Treasury Department and the IRS are aware of various structures being considered under which employers might use temporary staffing agencies (or other staffing agencies)… to evade application of section 4980H [the employer insurance mandate],” the IRS said in a proposed regulatory announcement issued December 28. …

UPDATE: Click here for the latest details on the gun ban and ammunition magazine registration bill, which includes new regulations for gun ranges.Press release:“The ISRA has learned from a credible source that Illinois Senate President John Cullerton [above] will introduce a so called ‘assault weapons’ ban on Wednesday when the legislature returns for its ‘lame duck’ session. Cullerton hopes to ramrod the bill through and get it to Governor Quinn for signature by Friday. If he is successful at doing so, nearly every gun you currently own will be banned and will be subject to confiscation by the Illinois...

City officials in Paragould, Arkansas, a town of 26,000, are recommending a plan that would enact martial law beginning in 2013. The plan, purportedly a response to recent property and violent crimes, would send police into the streets with AR-15 rifles and authorize them to stop anyone in the street and demand to know what they are doing. Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall announced in a town hall meeting last week that the program would begin in the new year: “[Police are] going to be in SWAT gear and have AR-15s around their neck,” Stovall said. “If...