Free Republic

Two 16-year-olds were shot after they tried stealing an SUV with a married couple and their two babies inside, Texas cops say. The shooting happened just after midnight on Monday, July 11, in Houston, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. The family had just arrived at their home when the teens walked up to their SUV and opened a back door, the sheriff said. Gonzalez said the father, fearing for the safety of his family, fired at the 16-year-olds, striking them both. Four gunshots are heard in surveillance video obtained by KHOU The wife drove away to get away...

The Boston Globe has published a collection of essays entitled, “Editing the Constitution.” What does the Boston Globe have in mind? Besides the introduction to the collection, written by Abdallah Fayad, there are 13 essays proposing changes. Check them out for yourself, and see what you think. Let’s consider two of the essays — the one on immigration and the one on the First and Second Amendments.

If this is accepted for review by the Supreme Court -- and the Supreme Court has shown itself to be extraordinarily cowardly in ducking ruling on big-ticket items -- we will find out if we really have a "conservative" court, or if the lawyers recommended by the Professional Class Karens of the Federalist Society are just from the Corporate Wing of the Uniparty. I suspect the latter. --- The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Hawaii gun regulation, ruling Wednesday that states can restrict the right to openly carry a firearm in public. The 7-4 decision said restrictions on...

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple that made headlines protecting their home from rioters, were charged on Monday. The couple held a rifle and handgun last month outside their house when protesters broke down a private-gate and headed past their residence. In television interviews, Mr. McCloskey has said they were scared for their property and their lives after many Black Lives Matter protests had turned violent and destructive in recent weeks. St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has charged the couple with brandishing weapons, according to local reports. She said the couple waved the guns at protesters in...

The FBI released 34 pages of notes, known as “302s,” of its 2016 and 2017 interviews with Bruce Ohr, the DOJ official who met with the British dossier author Christopher Steele and opposition research firm Fusion GPS’s Glen Simpson. Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, worked for Fusion GPS throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, when they were hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Convention. The FBI was sued by the watchdog group Judicial Watch to comply with their requests for access to the notes via Freedom of Information Act. Read the documents below:

In high contrast to nearly every other non-U.S. country, Israel passed a law on Monday that would expand the number of citizens eligible for firearms ownership licenses. As justification for the new policy, Israel’s Security Minister Gilad Erdan cited increased protection from “lone wolf” terrorist attacks. “Many civilians saved lives during terror attacks and in an era of ‘lone terrorism.’ The more skilled civilians carrying weapons, the greater the chance of thwarting attacks without casualties and reducing the number of casualties,” Erdan said, according to the Jerusalem Post. Previously, Israel operated under a system similar to the “good cause” scheme...

A Florida man Andy Meunier was taking his dog out for a walk when a bear attacked him. It was a short while after leaving his Naples home when he turned to see a black bear staring at him. Without warning, the bear attacked. Neunier recalls, “Everything went in slow motion,” “Everything went in slow motion. It was just as scary as you can imagine,” Meunier told ABC affiliate WZVN. “It was standing in front of me and I tried to turn left real quick and get back in the house, and caught an uppercut from a brown, or a...

The fates of three people who said they were on a rescue mission to help save a teenager from a New York heroin den when they were stopped with a cache of weapons could be decided by a New Jersey judge Monday.-SNIP-A judge is scheduled to rule Monday on whether a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police officer had probable cause to stop the car at the Holland Tunnel. The officer says he stopped them over a windshield crack and objects dangling from the rearview mirror, but the defendants argue it's more likely they were pulled over...

The nation's demagogues and constitutionally ignorant are using the Charleston, South Carolina, AME church shooting to attack the Second Amendment's "right of the people to keep and bear Arms." A couple of years ago, President Barack Obama said, "I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations." That's a vision shared by many Americans, namely that the Constitution's framers gave us the Second Amendment to protect our rights to go deer and duck hunting, do a bit of skeet shooting, and protect ourselves against criminals. That this vision is so widely...

The provision had earlier read, “that every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state”; it will now read, (a) Every citizen has a fundamental right to bear arms in defense of himself or herself and the state. Any restriction on this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny. (b) No citizen shall be compelled by any international treaty or international law to take an action that prohibits, limits, or otherwise interferes with his or her fundamental right to keep and bear arms in defense of himself or herself and the state, if such...

From Morris v. Army Corps Engineers (D. Idaho Oct. 10, 2014): Plaintiffs challenge regulations promulgated by the Army Corp of Engineers that govern the possession of firearms on property administered by the Corps. Plaintiffs argue that the regulations violate their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The regulations govern over 700 dams — holding back more than 100 trillion gallons of water — built by the Corps, and the surrounding recreation areas that serve over 300 million visitors annually. Adopted in 1973, the regulations were intended to provide for more effective management of the lake and reservoir projects....

Yesterday the Tenth Circuit heard oral arguments in Bonidy v. United States, which is an as-applied challenge to the U.S. Postal Service regulation which completely prohibits firearms on all postal property, including parking lots. Mr. Bonidy lives in Avon, Colorado, and has a concealed carry permit issued pursuant to Colorado law, following a fingerprint-based background check, safety training, and the County Sheriff’s determination that he does not pose any threat to himself or others. The post office does not provide home delivery in Avon, so residents must go to the post office to pick up their mail from a box....

In D.C. v. Heller, the Supreme Court stated that (emphasis added, citations omitted, as usual), Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of...

Never before have I felt so naked. Now more than ever, I wish I was armed. And I’m not alone. Any and all home-grown Islamic terrorism should be able, if need be, to be met by a well-armed civilian militia. The United Kingdom has had two beheadings of members of the public in the last two years, with neither police nor civilians able to prevent it. It has prohibitive gun laws. With news of the ISIS plot to randomly abduct members of the Australian public and behead them, Australian sentiment on guns is dramatically shifting. It appears Australians are finally...

From yesterday’s United States v. Cooney (8th Cir. July 22, 2014): As a convicted felon, [Larry] Cooney is prohibited from possessing firearms. In 2011, Cooney lived in a duplex with his fifty-year-old brother Warren Cooney (Warren) and his brother’s family. Warren had a long history of health problems, including two heart attacks. On October 27, 2011, Warren and nineteen-year-old Dwight Avance began to argue in the Cooney duplex. As the argument escalated and became physical, the two men took the fight outside, while Cooney remained within the residence. Once outside, Warren and Avance wrestled on muddy ground, near which several...

Today is the feast of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, Gabriel Possenti, according to the calendar of the Novus Ordo. In the older, traditional Missal we find that 28 February was given to him.   His date is most properly 27 February since that is the day he died and was born into heaven in 1862.  I visited his shrine beneath the great mountain Gran Sasso in Italy while I was in seminary.Little Francesco Possenti came from a large family, 13 children, in Spoleto and was baptized in the same baptismal font as St. Francis of Assisi.During a childhood illness...

Last week, in a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a restriction on carrying concealed handguns. The court held that carrying a handgun “outside the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense, though subject to traditional restrictions, constitutes ‘bear[ing] Arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment.” The question of whether the Second Amendment right to bear arms extends to the public is contentious. The 7th Circuit agrees with the 9th Circuit that carrying a gun outside the home is protected by the Constitution, but other courts (the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Circuits) are unsettled on...

Amherst police responded to a 911 call early Wednesday morning at the Williamsville home of WBEN talk show host Tom Bauerle, who told officers he was under surveillance by operatives of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the situation. Two police sources, who did not want to be identified because Amherst officials have not released reports on the incident, said officers took a licensed, loaded, semi-automatic handgun from Bauerle when they encountered him in his backyard as he claimed a suspicious person was spying on him. The two sources also said the radio...

TEPALCATEPEC, Mexico — For lime grower Hipolito Mora, it was time to organize and pick up arms when a packing company controlled by a brutal drug cartel refused to buy his fruit. For Bishop Miguel Patino Velazquez, it was seeing civilians forced to fight back with their own guns that made him speak out. For Leticia, a lime picker too afraid of retribution to give her last name, it was the day she saw a taxi driver kidnapped in front of his two young children that persuaded her to join those taking the law into their own hands. In Mexico,...

Last weekend's NRA event brought in the highest attendance yet for a three-day convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Numbers released today by the National Rifle Assocation show 86,228 attendees over the May 3-5 weekend, beating last year's St. Louis attendance. That convention brought in 73,740 NRA supporters.