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Much has been written about the events that occurred in Boston and there is a growing movement in the progressive establishment to finally do something about the serious threat of Islamic terrorism. An unidentified spokesperson for the Democratic Party stated, “For years the conservatives have blocked common sense terrorism control. Since Boston, I believe we have a mandate to finally pass laws that closes some serious loopholes in our immigration system.”

Syracuse, N.Y. -- The union representing New York State Police say they believe the state's stricter gun laws could put law enforcement officers at risk. In an email release on Monday, the New York State Troopers PBA said its 6,000-member group "holds widely shared concerns" about the NY Safe Act. Nonetheless, the union takes exception to some state lawmakers accusing the troopers of failing to enforce the law. "The individual members of this union did not write the terms of the bill nor vote on its passage," the release said. "We urge the citizens of New York state to remember...

In an apparent slip of the tongue, Harry Reid this morning referred to the gun-control bill he brought to the Senate floor as “anti-gun legislation.” “On the anti-gun legislation before the Senate, we are making good progress on the effort to schedule a series of votes on amendments to the anti-gun-violence legislation before the Senate.” Some, however, are questioning whether the Senate minority leader accidentally revealed his true feelings. GOP Sentaor Ted Cruz, a leading opponent of the bill, asked whether Reid’s statement was a ”Freudian slip.” He said in a Tweet:

I see that universal background check activists, who also favor permanent record retention, are trying to are trying to discredit talk that either of the Schumer bills will create a registry. It does not matter how the current Schumer bills read. If purchase records are kept those records constitute a gun owner registry. Period. Schumer and his cohorts may claim that a list of gun buyers is not a registry. Chucky may even put language in his bills forbidding a registry. But you can bet your life the next time some “must pass” bill hits the Senate, either Schumer or...

SEE: Collins,King vote to continue gun debate WASHINGTON — Maine`s two U.S. senators voted with the majority Thursday to move forward with debate on a package of gun-control measures prompted by December's mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut. I would love to hear Collins explain to her constituents in Maine, under what part of the federal Constitution have they delegated a power to the federal government to enter Main and regulate the ownership of firearms. I do know Maine’s Declaration of Rights stipulates in crystal clear language that: Section 16. To keep and bear arms. Every citizen has...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Fox News' "Hannity" discussing universal background checks: -snip- "Why is all this focus directed at background checks? The reason is because the Department of Justice has said the only way to implement what they want–universal background checks–is a registry, a federal list of every gun owner in America. And that would be wrong; it'd be unconstitutional."

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on Tuesday said he doesn't understand why gun owners fear the registration of their firearms. "I don't get the fear of registration," Steele said on MSNBC. "I don't get the, the concern about trafficking. Are we saying that we want criminals to, you know, make … back-alley sales out of the trunks of their cars?" Steele was part of a panel on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown," during which former Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) said that responsible gun owners insure their guns, which means they're registered. "I mean, I don't understand," she said. MSNBC...

And so this is how it begins: a man with no criminal record and no mental health issues is told by the state that he must turn in his legally-purchased arms to the state because they somehow accessed his medical records. Reader LC Scotty dropped this admission of tyranny into the comments of today’s earlier post: 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...

BY DAVE KOPEL America's 1st Freedom, March 2013. "WE WILL HAVE to change,” President Obama said recently, referring to Americans needing to do everything possible to ensure that murders like those at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., are never repeated elsewhere. Of course, the National Rifle Association strongly agrees, and has introduced the NRA National School Shield Program in order to develop very specific ideas for how to stop the next evildoer who attempts to murder children at school. President Obama, however, didn’t really seem to mean what he said. His children attend a school safeguarded by armed...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., insists his universal background check measure will reduce crime without infringing on "your ability to borrow your Uncle Willie's hunting rifle or share a gun with your friend at a shooting range." But the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates paint a dark picture of expanding background checks to private purchases, insisting the move inevitably would lead to a national firearms registry. With a registry in place, they say, the stage would be set for the NRA's worst nightmare - gun confiscations. The background check proposal, part of a post-Newtown Senate package facing...

I have been curious regarding how little effort the gun-control crowd has been exerting to prove that mandatory background checks work. There are, after all, six states that require all-private party sales to go through a background check, and ten states that require it for all handgun purchases. If driven to advocate for mandatory checks, you would think the case studies of these sixteen states must have provided plenty of evidence that such laws reduce murder rates, and thus affected your decision. Right? I found this testimony to the U.S. Senate by Dr. Daniel Webster, a public health professor,...

People across the political spectrum, from left to right and back again, seem to revel in perverse delight when comparing the policies of a political foe to those of the Nazis. Sometimes, they will skip the group comparisons and head straight into drawing personal parallels between the individual in question and Adolf Hitler. The practice is so onerous that, in the Dark Ages of the internet (1990), an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation named Mike Godwin coined what has become known as Godwin's Law. It states that, the longer and more involved an argument becomes, the more likely a...

So, are "Background Checks" really "Gun Owner Registrations" When you buy a firearm from a dealer, you submit to a background check, officially known as the The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. Mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and launched by the FBI on November 30, 1998, NICS is used by Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to immediately determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms or explosives.(1) Like many of you, I was under the impression that NICS checks were not kept as permanent records. Federal law specifically prohibits using NICS...

Anti-freedom politicians have a history of overreaching on guns. They think they can fool the stupid country rubes by picking up a shotgun and asking "can I get me a hunting license here?", the image of Diane Feinstein with her finger inside the trigger guard of an AK47 variant, and various political figures picking up guns just prior to elections. Mayor Bloomberg Bloomberg is attempting to do the same with his 12 million dollar buy of commercials pushing for universal gun registration (also known as Universal Background Checks) in 13 states. Here is one of the advertisements. In the advertisement,...

Feinstein's assault rifle ban has been removed from the Senate gun-control bill. While that is good news, it was recognized from the beginning as a bridge too far. What has survived, and may well become law, all in the spirit of bipartisan compromise, will actually be far worse. The goals of the left have always been shrouded in deception and misrepresentation. Hide your true agenda behind a deceitful argument and then, after grabbing power, do what you really meant to do all along. That is what Hitler, Lenin, Mao, Castro and Obama have all done. By controlling the terms of...

Think about these words from Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown, “I do not think that voter registration should be a barrier to participation in voting,” The leftist Secretary of State is now trying to convince Oregonians that the mere act of having to REGISTER TO VOTE is an impediment to actual voting. It’s an impediment to exercising your franchise, they would have you believe. Brown is calling on the legislature to allow Oregonians to register to vote using their driver‘s licenses–you know, the same driver’s licenses her comrades on the left would like to issue to illegal aliens.

I think we all have a right to a “high five” over Harry Reid’s announcement that the assault weapons ban is going to be dropped from the Democrats’ current legislative package in the Senate. However, it’s far too early to declare victory and go home. Dianne Feinstein has already announced that she’ll try to restore it as a late amendment to other legislation before the session is over. And there are still the matters of the proposed ban on standard capacity magazines, and the “universal background check” remaining before Congress. The latter, of course, has particularly huge loopholes which promise...

Sunday’s Seattle Times has an analysis on the failure of House Bill 1588 — the controversial “universal background check” measure — that gun owners have quickly seen is lacking some key perspectives. The piece, written by Danny Westneat, looks at the switched vote of Walla Walla Rep. Maureen Walsh, a Republican who initially supported the measure. Westneat’s take is that she changed her vote because of pressure from the National Rifle Association, and that it is this sort of effort by the gun lobby that will prevent doing “anything about guns.” According to Westneat, background checks work. He writes: “Last...

Colorado -–(Ammoland.com)- The most dangerous phase in the fight to defeat the gun grabbers’ all-out assault on our Second Amendment freedoms is upon us. I’m talking about the gun grabbers’ “Plan B” alternative – a triple threat designed to sound more “reasonable” to the public than a total gun ban. After I explain why this “Plan B” triple threat is so dangerous, I need you to take IMMEDIATE action and forward this article to every pro-gun person you know and ask them to help fight back as well. The “Plan B” alternative has three components: Fictitious “gun trafficking” legislation, so-called...

"The question that I would pose to the senior senator from California is," said Cruz to Feinstein, "Would she deem it consistent with the Bill of Rights for Congress to engage in the same endeavor that we are contemplating doing with the Second Amendment in the context of the First or Fourth Amendment, namely, would she consider it constitutional for Congress to specify that the First Amendment shall apply only to the following books and shall not apply to the books that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?