Free Republic

Texas Senator Ted Cruz's question to California Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein on the Second Amendment in a March 14 hearing forced MSNBC hosts into conniptions, At the heart of the congressional debate are the questions: Does the Second Amendment prohibit the federal government from passing laws related to firearms, leaving the role exclusively to the states? Or does the Second Amendment grant Congress the authority to pass laws banning guns whenever it believes it appropriate? The Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights provides that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The...

A growing number of states are moving forward with legislation to exempt them from new federal gun controls and, in some cases, brand as criminals anyone who tries to enforce them. While many of the bills are considered symbolic or appear doomed to fail, the legislative explosion reflects a backlash against legislative and regulatory efforts in Washington to tamp down on gun violence. As of this week, at least 28 states had taken up consideration of gun bills this year, according to new data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures. More than 70 bills have been put forward...

Cooke won’t enforce new state gun laws Weld County Sheriff John Cooke said he won’t enforce either gun-control measure waiting to be signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper, saying the laws are “unenforceable” and would “give a false sense of security.” One bill passed Friday would expand requirements to have background checks for firearm purchases. Hickenlooper is expected to sign it into law within two weeks. Earlier this week, Colorado lawmakers approved a 15-round limit on ammunition magazines. It also is awaiting the expected approval of the governor. Cooke said Democratic lawmakers are uninformed but are scrambling in reaction...

Western New York man now faces seven years in prison for violating Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new gun control-law, the NY Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act (or SAFE Act). Benjamin M. Wassell, an Iraq War veteran, was charged with twice selling newly banned military-style ‘assault’ weapons and standard-capacity magazines to an undercover police officer as part of a sting operation conducted by State Police and the New York Attorney General’s Office, the Buffalo News reported. Altogether, the 32-year-old Silver Creek resident was slapped with three felony charges and one misdemeanor, which as noted could end up putting Wassell, who has...

I can't help but wonder if some of our politicians are simply lacking knowledge, or if they are willfully ignorant about the implications of the legislation they pass through their chambers. Let's look at a case in point and see if we can come up with an answer. The state of Colorado is as good a place to start as any. Colorado is a state that should epitomize the American West. It is as rugged as any state in America, with the Rocky Mountains raising their jagged tops into the sky. One would think the state would seek to protect...

DENVER (AP) — A landmark expansion of background checks on firearm purchases was approved Friday by lawmakers in Colorado, a politically moderate state that was the site of last year's mass shooting at a suburban Denver movie theater. The bill previously passed the state Senate and now heads to Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, who is expected to sign it into law within two weeks. Earlier this week, Colorado lawmakers approved a 15-round limit on ammunition magazines. It is also awaiting the expected approval of the governor. The bill passed Friday expands cases when a $10 criminal background check would be...

“When interviewed by video journalist Jason Mattera, U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky … left no doubt that she and her ideological allies are working hard to pour a little more oil on that slope, and crank up the incline a few more degrees,” St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner Kurt Hofmann wrote, exposing the fraud of gungrabbers who ridicule warnings of a “slippery slope.” “We’re on a roll now,” Schakowsky claimed. “We’re gonna push as hard as we can and as far as we can.” When asked if the “assault weapon” ban was just the beginning, Schakowsky replied “Oh absolutely. I mean,...

With just a day left in this year’s regular session, a high-profile bill aimed at curbing gun violence is still alive in the Legislature. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-4 late Thursday to approve House Bill 77, sending it on to the Senate floor. The vote broke down along party lines, with all six Democratic committee members voting in favor and all four Republican committee members voting in opposition. However, even if the bill gains full Senate approval by noon Saturday, it would still face one more obstacle in order to move on to Gov. Susana Martinez’s desk...

Hartford, Connecticut --(Ammoland.com)- Once again, thousands of pro-liberty activists descended on the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. They were met by a Public Safety and Security Committee that was mostly absent from the hearing, legislators that noticeably disappeared when Colt Manufacturing dropped off busloads of employees that filled the building. They were also met by handful of anti-rights activists who were quickly overwhelmed by the thousands of pro-rights activists in attendance. This is not surprising. The January rally of pro-rights activists netted thousands of people that filled the entire back half of the Capitol Building. When the anti-rights activists later...

During Friday’s marathon gun control hearing in the Colorado Senate, Republican Sen. Kent Lambert offered an amendment to exempt active military members, veterans and their families from the gun magazine ban. Enter Sen. Mary Hodge, a disgraceful Dem who urged fellow lawmakers to oppose the exemption because “some of them come back with significant mental health problems.” …

El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa told an angry crowd Thursday he would stand firm against Democrat-sponsored gun bills that will almost certainly become law July 1. Maketa, who received several standing ovations during a two-hour public meeting about gun legislation, said the proposed laws were hastily crafted and at least one would be unenforceable. “One of the reasons a vast, vast majority of sheriffs around this state are opposing these bills and all aspects of these bills is because they are concerned that this is a stepping stone to registration” of gun owners, he said. “We will not tolerate...

There is a poll at the Denver Post on the proposed magazine ban. It is about 1/3 the way down on the right hand side. Be careful about the questions. The first response is "for" to overturn the ban. Link to the Poll

Several hours into the General Assembly's first hearing on proposed gun control bills at the state Capitol Thursday, state Sen. Joan Hartley turned to a gun industry representative and asked what gun-control measures he could live with. Stiffer penalties for gun trafficking, a crackdown on illegal gun purchases and laws to keep guns away from people with mental illness, responded Joseph Bertozzi, senior vice president of O.F. Mossberg and Sons, a gun manufacturer based in North Haven. "What has never worked is gun bans,'' Bertozzi told members of the legislature's public safety committee, including Hartley, a Waterbury Democrat. "We firmly...

S. 374 represents a direct blow to Americans’ right to keep and bear arms without excessive government interference. The bill holds that any “transfer” of a firearm must be conducted via a middleman (in practice, a law-enforcement officer or the holder of a Federal Firearms License) and that a transferee is obliged to submit to a check under the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. There are good-faith arguments in favor of and against this provision. But Chuck Schumer has narrowed the definition of “transfer” so strictly as to make his proposition absurd. If, for example, a gun owner...

Folks, Keep your eyes on the target. Everyone (for good reason) is crowing over how Sen. Ted Cruz completely creamed Marxist CA Senator Dianne Feinstein. If you haven't seen it, go here here However, this is classic Democrat Party bait-and-switch. If you're old enough to remember FReeping in the Clinton years like I have, you'd remember that the Clinton Democrats will put out a bill so extreme as to generate an uproar, then withdraw the bill and admit that they overreach and introduce "more modest" legislation. Well, the more "modest" gun legislation is none other than Chucky Schumer's Universal Background...

YouTube: VIDEO: CO mag ban could eliminate usage of many more guns than anticipated The video is one minute long, and loaded easily on medium network connection.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on Thursday that the nation’s current debt of $16.7 trillion is “not endangering” the country, adding that “some debt is not a bad idea” and that he and other congressional Democrats “don’t think there’s a problem.” … Conyers and other liberal Democrats spoke at a Capitol Hill press conference about their initiative to compel Congress to cancel the across-the-board budget cuts (sequester) of $1.2 trillion over 10 years, which actually are reductions in the rate of increase in federal spending and amount to $44 billion for this...

WASHINGTON – The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a renewed assault-weapons ban, advancing the measure to the Senate floor where it will face intense resistance from Republicans and other gun-rights supporters. The bill was approved by the committee on a party-line, 10-8 vote. Chief sponsor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she knows "the road is uphill" for the legislation, but sought to press her colleagues to consider the bill. "Are we going to stand with the thousands of police chiefs and law enforcement officers who do support this bill? Are we going to stand with the victims of gun...

When I go shooting with friends, we head out into the desert and inevitably we admire each other's firearms and swap 'em for a try to compare their accuracy, feel and overall abilities. That makes us criminals under the "background check" bill currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Charles Schumer, who proposed the measure, has packed his legislation full of legal snares virtually guaranteed to turn gun owners into lawbreakers. That's an impressive little sleight of hand for legislation considered to be the only sort of gun control with a chance to make it through Congress. Ed Stone...

You’ll shoot your eye out kid! Or at least that’s what one Assemblywoman must believe of children that attend gun shows with their family. Linda Rosenthal (D) has introduced a new bill that would ban children under 12 from attending a gun show in New York state. Via the Times Union (the sarcasm is fantastic): The bill was put forward by Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, who hails from that trackless wilderness and sportsmen’s paradise known as Manhattan. “Children should be learning to read and write, not to shoot a firearm,” Rosenthal says in a statement, as if the two skills were...