Free Republic

Most gun control schemes do little, if anything, to positively effect change in criminal trends. In fact, such schemes have largely proven to be economically illiterate attempts to restrict and regulate the private ownership of firearms. And examples of the bad economics of gun control just keep piling up. I know, I know: Not everything is about the bottom line; but when the bottom line suffers in a misguided attempt to forward useless gun bans, I think it starts to matter a little bit more. In the latest example of gun-control killing private businesses, Century International Arms is laying off...

On June 8 The Daily Beast ran a column by Dean Obeidallah which argues gun rights opponents either need to get serious about opposing gun control or forget it. It is time to go big or go home. According to Obeidallah, going big entails lawsuits against the NRA – seeking to hold them culpable "if [a] loved one was killed by a gun obtained because of the NRA's opposition to universal background checks" – and rewriting the 2nd Amendment. Obeidallah claims the "pro-gun lobby" worked for "20-plus years" to get the Supreme Court to recognize the "then-radical notion that the...

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We all saw this one coming. Two weeks after Elliot Roger stabbed three people and shot three more, a trio of legislators from California (including Dianne Feinstein) have proposed a new federal law called “The Pause for Safety Act” which would allow anyone at any time to seek a “firearms restraining order” against an individual to prevent them from purchasing any new firearms and also confiscate any firearms they may already own. From Barbara Boxer’s website, here are the details we have at the moment: The new legislation – The Pause for Safety Act – will include the following provisions:...

A DOJ Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) "special report" shows that "firearm-related" homicides fell by 39 percent between 1993 and 2011. It also showed that violent crime--or "nonfatal firearm-related violent victimization against persons aged 12 or older"--declined by 70% over the same time period. The BJS report was released in May 2013, but was under-reported amid the push for new gun control laws. The information in it is detrimental to many of the gun control arguments which were being propounded at the time.

A Vermont gun importer is blaming the White House for its laying off of 41 workers because the government blocked its plan to bring nearly $30 million worth of antique, American-made military rifles home from South Korea... Century International Arms to re-import the World War II-era M1 Garand rifles .. This importation was denied despite our explaining that the denial would harm the company and pointing out that there is no rational, gun-control reason to block the importation of these historic, 70-year-old firearms ... the South Korean government had been given preliminary approval for the deal last year and the...

In his new book, This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made The Civil Rights Movement Possible, journalist Charles Cobb shows how important guns were not only to leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. but also to many black Southerners who "believed in both nonviolence and self-defense."

Here is the video description, MTB ride on Saturday 31st May 2014 from Ongegund, last few km’s before end of session. Armed gunman and 2 others stopped myself and took cellphone, car keys, oakleys and bike. Fortunately they did not have a clue what a GOPRO was and this is the evidence that will assist in their procecution! While this incident ended up OK for the victim (well, he wasn’t shot anyway), this could have gone bad very quickly and he would have had no way to defend himself. MTB Gunpoint Robbery in Somerset Westhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ECs8ZrmH8D8 UPDATE: According to one international...

University presidents overwhelmingly oppose letting students carry concealed guns on their campuses — and don’t really want people carrying them anywhere else, either. A study commissioned by Ball State University polled 401 university presidents in the U.S. and found that 95 percent of them do not want students with concealed handguns to be allowed at their universities. Furthermore, most weren’t comfortable with students having guns anywhere else either, as 65 percent of them opposed the carrying of concealed handguns off-campus. The numbers are hardly surprising, as the university presidents seem to have little personal taste for guns. Seventy-nine percent of...

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel loves to control Chicagoans, so he hates the truth about guns. To address Chicago’s high crime rate, Emanuel debuted a plan before the City Council last week that is guaranteed to fail to prevent crimes committed with guns and succeed at rendering law-abiding citizens defenseless. Emanuel proposes barring gun stores in 99.5% of the city and mandating that the few allowable gun stores undergo quarterly audits and install spy cams. He also blames other states for his state’s high crime rate. In a testament to his enormous confidence in his plan, Emanuel did not allow immediate...

Analysis Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, hero to the tea party and villain to liberals, predicted Saturday that Republicans will win control of the Senate in November, then went on to edge out Dr. Ben Carson in a straw poll taken on the last day of the 2014 Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans. Cruz had uplifting words for the party faithful in attendance. “I am convinced we are going to retake the United States Senate in 2014,” the junior senator from Texas said, no equivocation whatsoever in his distinct voice. Cruz is the latest in a long line of polarizing...

The nation’s top extortion artist, Eric Holder, is at it again (or still). This time, rather than running guns to Mexican drug cartels or investigating reporters who publish inconvenient facts about the administration’s scandals, Holder is taking aim at America’s small businesses. While Holder and Co have been busy collecting billion dollar fines from big banks, they’ve taken a more direct approach to snub out businesses that don’t necessarily conform with the Holder/Obama view of America. Operation Choke Point, as it has been known, was a DOJ initiative that was intentionally designed to pressure banks and lenders into avoiding certain...

Catholic Leaders in Massachusetts Come Out in Support of Sweeping Anti-Gun Legislation May 31 2014 by Dan Cannon Share This Post According to a statement issued by The Roman Catholic Bishops of the Commonwealth, it looks like the leaders of the Catholic church in Massachusetts have come out in support of a sweeping gun control bill that was introduced late last week. Here is the statement according to iobserve.org, “The Roman Catholic Bishops of the Commonwealth are in support of adjustments to existing firearm laws. Any law that would address the role that violence, some mental illnesses, and substance abuse...

On the same day that Sonic, an Oklahoma City-based fast food chain, issued a statement against customers carrying guns at their restaurants, an employee at the company’s Topeka, Kan. store was robbed. According to Topeka police, two males robbed a carhop on Friday afternoon, reports the Topeka Capitol-Journal. Sonic is unique among major fast food eateries in that it provides customers the option of having carhops bring orders to their vehicle. While police said no guns were displayed by the robbers, the crime follows a new policy that the Oklahoma City-based company issued Friday. “We’ve considered the views and desires...

I’m in a very polite discussion with someone about gun safety. I’ve managed to use data to convince this person that America is not home to exceptional gun rampages, that they occur in other countries, and that those denied guns go on rampages with other things. I’ve also shown that gun control laws in England have seen increased violent crime in, while gun control laws in Australia did nothing to affect gun crime statistics, which were dropping anyway. The next line of discussion is whether guns in the home are so dangerous to family members that they have no merit...

The latest mass-casualty shooting spree -- this one in Santa Barbara, California -- has touched off the usual debate about how to put a stop to these hideous spasms of murder. These random massacres have become, as I wrote in a previous column, an American psychosis. Some, including the anguished father of one of the victims, point to guns and the National Rifle Association as the villains. Defenders of guns respond with the usual arguments -- which I find persuasive. That much having been said, I wish people who defend the Second Amendment wouldn't talk about their guns with...

On May 26 the New York Daily News launched a series about the Santa Barbara tragedy titled "America in Denial." It is a perfect demonstration of how the left plans to deny or downplay many facts in the horrid Santa Barbara attacks while perverting others so they can push gun control.

Guns: The Santa Barbara shooter had legally purchased and registered firearms, and passed prior questioning by the police who saw no danger to himself or others. More gun laws won't stop the next such shooter, either. It is eerie how the mental health of the shooter consistently seems to emerge as a key factor in mass shootings such as the rampage by Elliot Rodger, who killed six and wounded 13 on Friday. The shooter had been in therapy since age 8 and police had been warned by his parents to check him out. Yet few liberals cry for tougher mental...

The great writer Harlan Ellison turns 80 today. Ellison has won eight Hugo Awards, a shared award for the screenplay of A Boy and his Dog that he counts as "half an Hugo" and two special awards from annual World SF Conventions; four Nebula Awards of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA); five Bram Stoker Awards of the Horror Writers Association (HWA); two Edgar Awards of the Mystery Writers of America; two World Fantasy Award from annual conventions; and two Georges Méliès fantasy film awards. -- Wikipedia Ellison is known primarily to television viewers as the author...

His parents said they were so concerned that they called police. Officers who showed up at Rodger’s doorstep for a mental health check in April, however, found a well-mannered if shy young man whom they concluded posed no risk. They hadn’t seen the videos, and by the time law enforcement had, it was too late: Rodger had gone on a deadly rampage. The sheriff’s office “was not aware of any videos until after the shooting rampage occurred,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Kelly Hoover said. Sheriff Bill Brown has defended the officers’ actions, but the case highlights the challenges...