Free Republic

George Irizarry will get his guns back. The Hazleton man known for wearing a gun on his hip to demonstrate his Second Amendment rights had all charges dismissed stemming from a Feb. 3 incident in which he drew a gun on a man walking through yards near his home on West Maple Street. After dismissing the charges following a preliminary hearing Friday afternoon, Magisterial District Judge James Dixon instructed police to return weapons Irizarry surrendered under Dixon's order in July. Michael Andrejco testified he had walked between homes and reached a sidewalk on West Maple Street when Irizarry put a...

A man in Crawford County, Mich., was arrested and charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon on Sunday after he called authorities about a trespassing suspect on his property, his wife tells TheBlaze. There are also serious allegations being made about officers demanding that video footage of the incident — taken by the man’s wife — be deleted. Thomas Donald, a military veteran, was reportedly out hunting with his 11-year-old son and armed with an “unloaded” single-shot .410-gauge shotgun (his son chose to use a crossbow instead) when he confronted a man riding a dirt bike on his 10...

(Credit: Heather Donald, YouTube) A military veteran in Crawford County, Michigan has been arrested and charged with a felony assault with a deadly weapon even after HE was the one who called the cops in the first place when he found a man trespassing on his property.When the man’s wife tried to video tape what was happening the cops told her to turn off the camera and tried to take it.  (You can see the video below… only because the wife figured out how to restore the “deleted” file)The Blaze has reported that Thomas Donald was out hunting with his...

Open carry activists in Orion Township, Mich., had the police called on them during their “For Liberty Friday” protest last week. However, they were pleasantly surprised when they were confronted by a sheriff’s deputy who completely supported their demonstration because it is protected under the Second Amendment. “We saw the a [sic] OC Sheriff car pull up so we all took out our camera-phones right away, anticipating trouble,” the video’s description reads. “This officer gets out of his car, waves to us, and walks right over. He shakes all of our hands, introduces himself, and states his purpose for walking...

People openly carrying guns obtained as private buyers at a Phoenix gun turn in event An open carry march in Toledo, Ohio, gained some media attention.  Ron in Toledo writes of his experience at the event on opencarry.org: September 22,'13 - Our open carry walk through down town Toledo today was covered by local TV stations, our friendly WSPD Radio 1370 AM, and The Toledo Blade news paper. It was windy and quite cool for this old man, and I was the eldest in attendance. I am proud of the turn out and I met some of the nicest...

Arkansas Carry  has postponed the open carry walk that was scheduled for Joneboro for two weeks.  The open carry walk has been coordinated with the local prosecutor and police in order to educate the public about the change in Arkansas carry law.  As stated by Arkansas Carry: On September 22nd, 2013, at 3:00 pm, Arkansas Carry will host a legal and peaceful armed citizen walk in Jonesboro. The walk will begin near the County Courthouse and move north on Main Street to Cate Avenue, then back south on Union Street. Over a dozen Arkansas Carry members will take part...

Saturday the streets of downtown Nacogdoches will be filled with guns. "We stand for liberty, freedom, individual rights and the constitution," said Josie Harrison, TX Sons of Liberty Riders. The Texas Sons of Liberty is group of Second Amendment advocates promoting gun law awareness. Saturday they plan to take their cause to streets of Nacogdoches. "We basically stand up for the constitution, so we go anywhere we feel the constitution needs to be upheld," said Harrison. 250 people are expected at the Come and Take It Nacogdoches Gun Rally. The group had to obtain a permit from the city to...

I was not surprised by the position taken by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.  He has been getting some heat from the statist anti-freedom crowd, and those are the people that he hangs with.   He has always been an Obama supporter and so his propensity, like most of those on the left, is to put the "progressive" agenda before profits. Up until now, he did the smart business move, he stayed neutral.  He simply followed the law of the state his business was in.   Second amendment supporters let their support be known.    As second amendment supporters outnumber those who wish...

GLASTONBURY — A man who became alarmed when he saw a man carrying a gun inside the TD Bank at 2461 Main St. last Thursday afternoon was himself charged with breach of peace because he shook up bank staff. Robert Gursky, 50, of Cavan Lane, was in the bank transacting business when he saw a person with a handgun. The person he saw was legally carrying the firearm and had no ill intent, police said. Gursky, however, was concerned and tried to convey what he saw to a bank teller.

Starbucks says guns are no longer welcome in its cafes, though it is stopping short of an outright ban on firearms. The fine line that the retailer is walking to address the concerns of both gun rights and gun control advocates reflects how heated the issue has become, particularly in light of recent mass shootings. Most states allow people to openly carry licensed guns in some way and many companies do not have policies banning firearms in their stores. But Starbucks has become a target for gun control advocates, in part because of its liberal-leaning corporate image. In turn, gun...

On Tuesday night, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wrote the following open letter asking customers to no longer bring firearms into the stores, even in states where they are legally permissible to carry. He notes that this is not a "ban" on guns, but rather a request. In the letter, Schultz expresses frustration with pro-gun activists who have held "Starbucks Appreciation Day" events at the company's location, ostensibly to laud the coffee shop's policy on open-carry. Schultz does not want these events held at Starbucks any longer. With the letter, he risks incurring the anger of a large segment of the...

It take a gun to stop a crazy with a gun and until someone gets there and locates the killer, the madman will continue to kill. The FBI is now saying yesterday's shootings were caused by a lone gunman armed with a single shotgun. The murderer armed himself with the handgun from an armed security guard had shot but there was no AR-15 used as incorrectly reported.he s

Photo by Dave Workman A mother needed to use the Internet to order items required by a minor emergency on the road.   Naturally, she turned to Starbucks. Starbucks has become known nationally for its neutral policy on the carry of firearms.  If you are following the law, Starbucks is willing to take your money in exchange for their product.  Here is what happened in a New Hampshire Starbucks as written by the mother it happened to, Riana, on opencarry.org: Here I am, minding my own business, sitting with my husband and son in the Starbucks on Main Street....

Three people were reportedly arrested on Friday for openly carrying Civil War-era pistols during a pro-gun protest outside the Texas Capitol. Gun rights activists tell TheBlaze the arrests were unlawful as it is legal in Texas to openly carry a pre-1899 antique firearm. Terry Louis Holcomb, 44, identified as a Huntsville-area pastor, and Scott Douglas Smith, 50, a military veteran from San Antonio, and Gary Hayes, a quadriplegic, were reportedly arrested by state troopers in Austin and charged with disorderly conduct, which is defined, by law, as an action with a firearm “calculated to alarm.”(YouTube)

Earlier this week, a video was posted on YouTube which demonstrated how Appleton, Wisconsin, police violated the rights of two men who were openly carrying AR-15s, which is legal in the state of Wisconsin.The two men were first held at gunpoint, then handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car while the officers “investigated” the incident, only to find that the men had not broken any laws and there was no clear evidence to charge them with any crime.Apparently, the police department had received three separate calls because the men were carrying “assault rifles” across their backs...

 Photo by Oleg Volk In spite of YouTube video and audio showing numerous rights violations as well as conspiracy to violate those rights, the Appleton PD doubles down.    There will be no investigation of the incident where second amendment activists were detained at gunpoint and handcuffed without reasonable suspicion or probable cause last Saturday.  From the Appleton City Website: Due to the nature of the call, combined with the officers’ observations of the subjects walking toward the farm market armed with rifles, they were briefly detained at the scene. The firearms were identified as AR-15 rifles. Both subjects told...

Two guys walking to Appleton's downtown farmers' market on Saturday — while carrying AR-15 rifles on their shoulders — swiftly attracted some gunpoint attention and handcuffs from Appleton police.Whether that's surprising depends on where you stand about Second Amendment rights. One of the men happened to record the encounter, now making the rounds on the Internet, where at least some gun rights advocates are outraged by the police response.The men, Charles Branstrom, 28, and Ross Bauman, 22, also were wearing holstered handguns. About six minutes after they are stopped, one officer sees Branstrom's camera, confiscates it and attempts to turn...

Charles and Ross had AR-15 type rifles like this one slung over their shoulders Last Saturday, the seventh of September, Charles and Ross were exercising their constitutional rights to bear arms under both the U.S. Constitution and the Wisconsin state Constitution.  Neither had been involved in this sort of activism before, but from reading open carry forums had decided that carrying a video camera as well as their firearms, would be a prudent precaution. They did not expect trouble.  Open carry has been well established in Wisconsin.  Open carry has always been legal, and in 1998, after a long and...

Gun-rights advocates have scheduled an open-carry “awareness walk” for Saturday in Van Buren, the second walk this month in the River Valley involving people openly carrying handguns in holsters. The walk on Saturday is set to begin at 9 a.m. at the Van Buren Public Library parking lot, according to Steve Jones, chairman of Arkansas Carry, a statewide gun-rights group. From the library, the group will walk north on Main Street to North 20th Street, then cross Main Street and go south to Cane Hill Street. From that point, the group will walk back to the library, Jones said. Jones...

Brandon Howard Protest Obama while open carrying his AR15 in VirginiaVirginia Citizens Defense League Covington VA --(Ammoland.com)- Let me start with making the following key point:  VCDL is NOT a gun-control organization.  Period.We support the right of gun owners to do whatever they choose as long as they are not breaking the law.Keep that at the forefront of your thoughts as you read on. A TALE OF THREE LOCALITIES VCDL member Brandon Howard recently open carried an AR-15 at three different Tea Party protest events held at different locations and on different days. (The rifle  was strapped on his back...