Free Republic

The National Rifle Association, the country's most influential gun-rights supporter, is challenging President Obama's new plan to use his presidential power to tighten firearms laws, calling it a "political stunt" that fails to increase public safety. President Obama said this weekend that he'll meet Monday with Attorney General Loretta Lynch to discuss his "options” toward curbing gun violence, after ordering his White House team several months ago to identify "new actions" that he can take. The president also said that he's taking action because Congress has failed to act. He is expected to use so-called executive orders to tighten federal...

Jeb Bush isn't packing, according to a gun ownership survey of U.S. Republican presidential candidates published by the Daily Telegraph of London Tuesday. Despite his “A+” rating from the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobby, Bush is one of the few candidates who does not own firearms. Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, and Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard boss form California, also do not own guns, according to the Telegraph survey. While Bush, the former Florida governor, has touted his pro-gun rights record and state-level anti-gun violence laws, his not owning a weapon himself has concerned...

SOMERSWORTH — Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley told a crowd in Somersworth he will take on the NRA. Speaking to about 50 people at a gathering of the Somersworth Democratic Committee, O’Malley said the country has become passive in the wake of so many mass shootings. “One day it is Planned Parenthood, another day it is a church basement, then a school shooting,” O’Malley said. “Can you imagine what we would be doing as a nation if it was ISOL (ISIS) carrying out these attacks, rather than our own people?” O’Malley said he doesn’t know what it will take to...

Of all the sureties on this earthly plane, there is no more fundamentally, solidly certain than this: liberals have no use for God, unless they have a use for God. So it is of no surprise whatsoever that the Washington Post has this week an editorial that relies heavily and distinctly on scripture and Biblical law rather than judicial philosophy or constitutional law. Because in this case, the author is writing in favor of gun control. Rev. Rob Schenck writes against private ownership of arms in an argument that his headline summarizes as "you can't be pro-life and pro-gun," a...

Thinking of joining to them. But is it a one person organization basically? Am I better off contributing more to NRA?

It was the most awkward and divisive of questions that I would ask of other parents, usually new acquaintances, but also of old friends. We’d be on the phone, discussing our young children, laughing, and the subject of play dates would come up. The other mom might say, “Can Chloe come over here tomorrow to play with Maddie?” I would ask, “Do you keep guns in your house?” Always it would lead to the most illuminating of answers, whether yes or no. If the response was negative, the parent would answer immediately, following up with something like, “No, never. We...

RICHMOND — Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) announced Tuesday that Virginia will no longer recognize concealed carry handgun permits from 25 states that have reciprocity agreements with the commonwealth. Under the policy, Virginians with a history of stalking, drug dealing or inpatient mental-health treatment cannot obtain a permit in a state with comparatively lax laws and carry a handgun legally at home. Herring said severing the out-of-state agreements can prevent people who may be dangerous or irresponsible from carrying a concealed handgun. “While you are here, you are subject to the commonwealth’s gun laws,” Herring said in a news...

If anyone is on the fence.... fyi: According to a memo that we received from the National Rifle Association, current and prospective members will soon be facing an increase in the cost of membership dues for most membership types. Current members will soon receive a notice in the mail announcing the increase, which will take effect in early 2016. Associate membership and annual Junior membership dues remain unchanged while one, three, and five year memberships, as well as Life, Junior Life, and Distinguished Life membership types will all see an increase as follows: 1-year dues will increase from $35 to...

President Obama's reckless neglect of America's national security is a rapidly growing malignancy on this nation, and there are no signs it will get better. Some might attribute his arrogantly inaccurate assessment of the Islamic State group as "a JV team" or his delusional assertion, on the morning of the terrorist massacre in San Bernardino, California, that the Islamic State is "contained" to personal pride or political posturing. After all, he never admits his policies aren't working, and he is perpetually partisan. More careful observers, however, see something far more troubling: He simply refuses to inhabit the reality that Islamists...

Donald Trump may be receiving the coveted NRA endorsement ahead of the Iowa Caucuses according to insiders in and out of the NRA PVF, the political arm and financing group of the NRA. Why Trump? Trump's policy on the 2nd amendment is the most friendly to gun owners

"Hillary is a liar."This was Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.'s response to Sean Hannity when asked about Hillary Clinton's disgusting, and completely out-of-context, charge that he committed treason by encouraging LU students to defend themselves should Muslim terrorists, like the "San Bernardino Two," ever attack Liberty University. Clinton, a woman intimately familiar with the elements of treason, made her defamatory accusation on ABC's" This Week with George Stephanopoulos."While addressing nearly 13,000 students, faculty and staff at Liberty's convocation late last week, Falwell encouraged those 21 and older to avail themselves of LU's groundbreaking, perfectly legal and clearly much-needed concealed-carry policy."I always...

Although I'm (stupidly) still not a gun owner, I would like to join a pro-2A lobby to preserve my right to BECOME one. But which one to join? The largest is the NRA, but they endorse sh**s like Harry Reid. Suggestions?

Even though my father, brother, uncles and grandfather were in the military, I seldom handled guns growing up. That's because unlike many of the other people in my family, I've never had enough patience to hunt. Although I had a gun and some rudimentary training on using it for most of my life, it occurred to me that potentially fumbling around with a weapon I halfway knew how to use in the middle of the night when a burglar in the house wasn't the best idea in the world. So, I did learn to shoot. I went through a training...

Amid a new round of debate over gun control, Californians have already bought a record number of firearms in 2015, including major spikes in sales on Black Friday and the days after the San Bernardino attacks, an analysis of new federal and state data show. Firearms purchases in California triggered 1.51 million federal background checks in the first 11 months of the year, breaking the previous annual record of 1.47 million set last year.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign touted the presidential candidate’s intention to ‘take on the NRA’ Saturday. Clinton’s campaign sent out an email promoting Clinton’s record on gun control and assuring Americans that if she is elected, the NRA should be very afraid. “Hillary has been fighting hard to prevent gun violence for decades, from her vocal support of the Brady Bill in 1993 to her calls on the campaign trail to take on the NRA and pass commonsense solutions to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals,” the email reads. “She is the champion we need on this issue —...

Wayne LaPierre says no organization has been louder or clearer on the urgent need to enforce the federal gun laws than the NRA.

In a rare Oval Office address, President Obama issued a necessary call to action to the nation to snap out of its gun-rights stupor - while vowing to redouble the U.S. war on the death-cult jihadists of ISIS. Outrageously, his first objective is certain to run into a cement wall in a Congress controlled by a Republican majority that runs errands for the National Rifle Association. And the second strains credibility given his own halting campaign to destroy the terrorist proto-state and those motivated by its radical Islamist ideology. In the days since the attack in San Bernardino, many have...

I am not a complete stranger to guns. I got my merit badge in riflery when I was a kid and have dropped in on a firing range now and again, learning the basics on Glocks and Berettas. I even went shooting with former Governor Rick Perry of Texas. But the NRA was always a bridge too far. I interviewed Wayne LaPierre, its CEO, once for PJTV, but I never joined. I'm still a Jewish boy from New York whose mother cringed at buying him a cap gun. It's not in my DNA. The New York Times and Attorney General...

He succinctly summarized his "pitch" at the end of the discourse, saying, "If you want a cause-want to get on a bandwagon-then get these guns outlawed, and do something about the Second Amendment." -snip "We are in a situation where Australia had a situation like ours a number of years ago, and Australia said, 'look we're just losing too many people' ... [and they] went out and bought guns from everybody; now it is extremely difficult to buy a gun in Australia and very few people get killed." Symanski then informed the class of "an article in the paper that...

If this was "about your First Amendment rights, would you still have the same opinion that we don't need that any more either?"