Free Republic

Religious freedom, life, education, reining in Big Government — are these the proper focus of the NRA?In Indianapolis this weekend, tens of thousands of members of the National Rifle Association came, saw, and — well, in truth, they had already conquered. Last year, in Houston, Texas, the outfit was still running its victory lap after the defeat of the Schumer-Toomey-Manchin gun-control bill, celebrating not only the defeat of that proposal but also President Obama’s failure to to reinstate a federal ban on cosmetically interesting weapons and to establish a national limit on the size of magazines. This time, there was...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) defended the controversial enhanced interrogation technique of waterboarding this weekend, and implied that the practice would still be commonplace “if I were in charge.” “They obviously have information on plots to carry out Jihad,” she said at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting on Saturday evening, referring to prisoners. “Oh, but you can’t offend them, can’t make them feel uncomfortable, not even a smidgen. Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

Wisconsin Sheriff David Clarke will surely have a target on his back now after his superb comments at the annual NRA convention in Indianapolis. As reported by The Blaze, Clarke revealed the seven words he would add to the Second Amendment: “Keep your hands off our guns, dammit.” What Sheriff Clarke again demonstrates is for conservatives it’s nothing to do with race — it’s all about individual character. His comments about amending the Constitution were aimed at former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who said in his recent book that he would change the Second Amendment by adding five...

INDIANAPOLIS — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fired up a crowd of thousands inside Lucas Oil Stadium Saturday night to kick off the National Rifle Association’s “Stand and Fight Rally,” saying Americans’ constitutional rights as envisioned by the founding fathers are under attack and policies like gun-free zones constitute “stupid on steroids.” “They knew that if the Second Amendment goes, the rest of the constitution is not far behind,” she said of the country’s founders. In her approximately 12-minute address, Mrs. Palin also derided what she argued is akin to a ‘blame the messenger’ attitude on gun violence many Americans...

Come on, admit it — you miss having this kind of brilliance on television every weeknight, right? Piers Morgan celebrates the NRA’s Annual Meetings and their new push to provide clarity on interstate use of concealed-carry permits by employing a little character assassination: Who will stop these assassins? > RT @DRUDGE_REPORT NRA calls for universal concealed carry law... http://t.co/weub4OIMGu— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 25, 2014 Assassins? Morgan’s perspective didn’t improve much with time, either: The @NRA is now in paid collusion with gun manufacturers to arm every single American. Somebody, surely, has to stand up and stop them?— Piers Morgan...

The 2nd Amendment muscle car, designed by Danny “The Count” Koker of the TV show “Counting Cars,” and owned by Andy Ross, musician and host of “Maximum Archery” on Sportsman Channel, is on display at the 143rd Annual NRA Meeting & Exhibits at Indianapolis, Ind this weekend.

Guns continue to do a booming business, with the industry making, selling and importing firearms at the highest level in at least a quarter-century, according to a new federal report. The report also reveals the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives inspected fewer than 10% of the roughly 140,000 federal gun dealers in the nation — a seven-year low — as the agency struggles to fulfill its goal of inspecting all dealers every five years. ATF's Firearms Commerce in the United States report, released this week, shows 8.6 million guns were manufactured in the U.S. in 2012, the...

When Michael Bloomberg announced he would spend $50 million on gun control this year, he said he hoped to make the National Rifle Association “afraid.” This weekend, the Bloomberg-backed group Everytown for Gun Safety will help pay to send hundreds of anti-gun violence supporters to the NRA’s annual convention in Indianapolis. Cleopatra and Nathaniel Pendleton, parents of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old girl shot and killed in Chicago in 2013, are part of a group of survivors traveling to Indianapolis this weekend for the NRA convention with Bloomberg-backed Everytown for Gun Safety. Ten days after Michael Bloomberg announced a $50 million...

The Great One gave a great speech today at the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum and you can watch the full speech below: http://therightscoop.com/full-speech-watch-mark-levins-speech-at-the-nra-ila-leadership-forum/

Come on, admit it — you miss having this kind of brilliance on television every weeknight, right? Piers Morgan celebrates the NRA’s Annual Meetings and their new push to provide clarity on interstate use of concealed-carry permits by employing a little character assassination: DRUDGE REPORT @DRUDGE_REPORT NRA calls for universal concealed carry law... http://drudge.tw/1iV8OkN Piers Morgan ✔ @piersmorgan Who will stop these assassins? > RT @DRUDGE_REPORT NRA calls for universal concealed carry law... http://drudge.tw/1iV8OkN 8:42 AM - 25 Apr 2014 NRA seeks universal gun law at national meeting With concealed weapons now legal in all 50 states, the National Rifle...

Several potential Republican contenders for president will court gun-rights supporters at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention Friday. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum are set to speak at the convention’s leadership forum, a kind of political pep rally and strategy meeting the NRA considers one of its premier events of the year. …

Can a group of passionate mothers defeat the nation’s largest pro-gun institution and persuade elected officials to enact laws that will reduce gun violence and save lives? It’s too early to tell, but this weekend the two groups will come face to face outside the NRA’s annual convention. On one side of this version of the classic David versus Goliath battle, we have “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense.” This small, but passionate group is led by Shannon Watts, a 43-year-old mother of five who started the organization via a simple Facebook page after the horrific shooting at the Sandy...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — With concealed weapons now legal in all 50 states, the National Rifle Association's focus at this week's annual meeting is less about enacting additional state protections than on making sure the permits already issued still apply when the gun owners travel across the country. "Right now it takes some legal research to find out where you are or are not legal depending on where you are," said Guy Relford, an attorney who has sued communities for violating an Indiana law that bars local gun regulation. "I don't think that's right."

It's not often the Second Amendment scores a victory in the state of New York, but they got one on Tuesday when the Grand Island School district decided to reverse its decision to suspend a student for wearing a T-shirt with the NRA logo. Shane Kinney, a sophomore at Grand Island High School, was ordered to report to the principal's office last month when a teacher spotted him wearing the "controversial" piece of clothing. "They've yelled at me for wearing it before because it has a gun on it and I had to duct tape it," says Kinney. Administrators suggested...

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) signed into law Wednesday a pro-gun package that groups on both sides of the gun control debate describe as exceptional. The National Rifle Association calls it ”the most comprehensive pro-gun bill in state history.” Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun control group founded by shooting victim and former congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), calls it ”the most extreme gun bill in America.”

WASHINGTON -- For nearly a decade, the National Rifle Association successfully blocked a bill in Washington state that would have required alleged domestic abusers to surrender their firearms after being served with a protective order. Only those actually convicted of felony domestic violence, the nation's largest gun lobby argued, should be made to forfeit their gun rights. This past year, the NRA changed its tune. As the bill, HB 1840, once again moved through the state legislature, the gun lobby made a backroom deal with lawmakers, agreeing to drop its public opposition to it in exchange for a few minor...

In case you haven’t heard, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is going to spend $50 million in 2014 to build a “nationwide grass-roots network” to motivate anti-gun voters. That’s right, he’s trying to create an organization to oppose the NRA. You can read more about Bloomberg’s efforts in the NY Times. While I think Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety campaign is ridiculous and a waste of money, right now I just want to focus on this image that was posted on what appears to be the Facebook page of the movement. Notice anything wrong with the photo? That’s right,...

When MRCTV’s Dan Joseph talked with protesters outside the National Rifle Association’s headquarters in Fairfax, Va., earlier this week, he was able to really encapsulate the anti-gun crowd’s argument against the Second Amendment.When asked if a person who believes their life is in danger should be able to defend themselves with a firearm, one protester simply said, “No.”“Only a law enforcement officer should be allowed to use weapons,” she said. The same woman also told Joseph that he shouldn’t be able to carry a gun in a bad neighborhood, because he shouldn’t be walking around in a bad neighborhood in...

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That adage has more application than usual in California, where Democrats hold all of the statewide offices and supermajorities in the legislature. They can enact any policies they want, with only the judicial branch offering belated checks on their power. And when I say belated, that’s literally the case with state Senator Rod Wright, whom a jury found guilty in January of committing eight felonies regarding his residency and eligibility for the office he held.Normally, politicians who get that kind of a verdict have the decency to resign. If not, the body in...

Beginning in early 2011, state Sen. Leland Yee repeatedly solicited bribes to fund his San Francisco mayor and California secretary of state campaigns, according to the FBI agents who brought him down last month. But he appears to have devoted more time and energy to a far more lucrative pursuit: crafting or carrying legislation benefiting special interests who supply campaign contributions. It's a practice that's all too common in Sacramento, but Yee was a master. :snip: Yee introduced 20 bills from 2011 to 2014 that advanced a special interest over the public interest, according to this newspaper's review of his...