Free Republic

The National Rifle Association’s annual leadership conference is always a treasure trove of GOP smack-talk and an all-out constitutional liturgy — and if Friday night’s viral talking points are any indication, this year’s celebration ranks further right on the political spectrum than usual. Not that that’s surprising: it is the run-up year to a presidential election cycle, which means that the Republican machine was churning out even more harsh allegations than usual. Of course, one of the biggest showboats of the night was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who told political opponent Hillary Clinton to “come and take” away his guns,...

Dale Long died in the same red car he used to run into an apartment security guard on a cold night in early January. Long, who had been arrested in Tulsa nearly a dozen times since the early 1990s, was spotted by security officers who recognized him not only as the source of the disturbance to which they were responding but also as someone who had been banned from the property. Tulsa police homicide Sgt. Dave Walker said Long was shot in the torso when the security officer he ran into pushed away from the vehicle and fired a single...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Marissa Alexander, a woman whose case helped bring national attention to Florida's stand your ground and minimum sentencing laws, was allowed to leave jail late Tuesday afternoon to spend the rest of her sentence on house arrest. Applause broke out in the courtroom when Judge James Daniel announced he would reject the prosecutors' request for an additional two-year sentence and was releasing Alexander to community control. As she left the courthouse, Alexander read a prepared statement: "Today, after the sentence given by Judge Daniel, my family and I will be able to move on with our lives....

A billboard advertising a line of bulletproof vests for young boys has appeared near the Florida capital in Tallahassee. Chilling, controversial and undeniably eye-catching, the ad is part of the “Vest or Vote” campaign mounted by The Dream Defenders. The Florida-based social justice organization is rallying residents to vote in Florida’s midterm election Nov. 4. According to a report on Jacksonville’s CBS 47 Action News, the group hopes to elect candidates who will repeal the state's controversial stand-your-ground law. According to The BRPR Group, the Miami-based advertising agency behind the campaign, the billboard was modeled after youth clothing ads like...

The fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford ignited a nationwide debate on gun rights, profiling and Florida's controversial self-defense laws. That debate continues today, when a panel of experts convenes in Orlando to discuss the "stand your ground" law as part of an investigation the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights launched after the teen's death became a cause célèbre. Florida was the first state to adopt "stand your ground," and the killing of Trayvon shone a harsh light on it. Though Zimmerman's lawyers disputed that the controversial law played a role in his acquittal at trial last year,...

All of the most recent protests in Ferguson over the slaying of Michael Brown seem recent since the protestors have all asked for the same thing: That is to slap the cuffs on Darren Wilson, the officer who gunned down Brown on August 9. The reasons given for Wilson's freedom by some are that the prosecutors and cops almost never arrest and charge other cops with misconduct, the St. Louis County Prosecutor is a bigot, and there's no smoking gun piece of evidence to base an arrest on. These are all powerful blocks to clamping the cuffs on Wilson. But...

The mother of a teen slain at a Jacksonville gas station after he and his friends refused to turn down their music will be among the panelists at a seminar in Orlando about the controversial Stand Your Ground law. Jordan Davis' mother, Lucia McBath, will be among the experts examining whether there is racial disparity in the application or enforcement of Stand Your Ground laws. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is hosting the forum, which takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 17 in the grand ballroom of the Rosen Centre Hotel on International Drive. The forum...

It is beyond refute that the United States is a world leader, and exceptional, in several categories, although not in those that portray the richest nation in the world in a favorable light. Oh, it is true that America’s military is without peer, American corporations pay some of the lowest tax rates in the world, and the wealthy elite holding most of the nation’s wealth pay minimal taxes compared to most other countries. However, the United States also leads the world in the number of citizens incarcerated, number of guns in the population, number of gun-related homicides, lowest median income...

Wilcox for Congress In a close primary duel, Arizona congressional candidate Mary Rose Wilcox targets her opponent's support for Stand Your Ground.Could the 2012 killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin prove a deciding factor in an Arizona Democratic congressional primary? Former Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox certainly hopes so. Seeking to gain an edge over her rival, ex-state Rep. Ruben Gallego, in the weeks leading up to Tuesday's primary, Wilcox's campaign has invoked Martin's shooting and her opponent's past support for a controversial Stand Your Ground law. "America doesn't need more Trayvon Martin tragedies," read a mailer distributed by...

From voter ID laws to broken immigration detention centers, the U.S. is not the model democracy it fancies itself. Watching Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians in Gaza over our TV screens makes it easy to forget about the human rights abuses taking place right here on American soil. Sybrina Fulton and Ron Davis, whose sons were killed in what many believe were racially motivated attacks, are using their children’s deaths to remind Americans that human rights are being violated right here in the United States. More than a year after George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, Fulton felt the humiliating pendulum...

What may have started out as an ordinary evening in February 2012, ended with a dead teen-ager and a national controversy that is still unresolved. The fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and the subsequent not-guilty verdict of the shooter, George Zimmerman, on July 13, 2013, prompted citizens across the nation to question the "stand-your-ground" laws. Such laws, often criticized as being "shoot first" laws, make it hard to prosecute cases against people who shoot others and then claim self-defense. Kentucky, as well as the other states with such laws, should revise them so that the one who initiates a...

I’ve heard more than my fair share of ignorant, biased arguments against Stand Your Ground laws in my time, particularly since the Zimmerman case. The has been a particularly useful tool for low information, anti-gun rights activists because it allows them to blend a combination of straw-men and stereotypes into one toxic mash-up. A typical example along these lines would be; Of course you like SYG laws. That way, when a white person is “threatened” by having too many black faces around they can just gun them down..

Last summer, student activists in Florida known as the Dream Defenders held one of the longest sit-in demonstrations in recent Tallahassee history, as they attempted to get Rick Scott to call for a special session on the controversial Stand Your Ground self-defense law. The sit-in began just days after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Though Scott declined to convene such a session, the group received national attention for their actions, and they vowed that they would be back in 2014 to educate thousands of new voters in advance of the 2014 state elections. That's...

The media coverage given to the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case, and the attention paid to Florida's "stand your ground" law, resulted in the legislature considering flaws in the law.   They passed a reform bill that was signed by Governor Rick Scott yesterday, 20 June, 2014.  From tallahassee.com: The legislation, which marks one of the most significant changes to the state’s self-defense laws since the 2012 killing of teenager Trayvon Martin, was one of nearly 60 bills signed by Scott on Friday. The state mandatory sentencing law, the "10-20-life" law, was being used by some prosecutors to obtain plea bargains...

A 73-year-old man has been charged with murder in a recent shooting that killed a man and wounded a woman who had done meth and entered his vacant duplex without permission in suburban Reno. The defendant, Wayne Burgarello, acknowledged the Feb. 13 shooting at a property he owns in Sparks but says he was acting in self-defense under Nevada's "stand your ground" law, according to court records.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)WEST PALM BEACH -- If you support Florida's Stand Your Ground law as a politician, a controversial political activist is coming after you. Reverend Al Sharpton has fought the law since the death of Trayvon Martin. Sunday, he announced a new action against state lawmakers who support it. At a benefit for the Grace Baptist Church of St. Lucie at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Rev. Sharpton says his National Action Network group is shifting its focus onto the Sunshine State with the hopes of repealing the law by changing the makeup of the state legislature and affecting...

A Dallas woman might have been killed if she wasn’t carrying her firearm last week. Police say Angela Martin, 44, shot and killed a man who began stabbing her during an altercation on Friday. Martin, who is the assistant manager at the Dallas apartment complex where the incident occurred, was arguing with an unidentified female resident while sitting in her car when things started to get heated. The woman’s husband, identified as 52-year-old Louis Rodriguez, eventually got involved in the altercation. When she started to feel unsafe, Martin says she retrieved her handgun from her purse and placed it on...

A teenager who was shot by a Marigny homeowner during an apparent attempted burglary last summer was arrested Friday afternoon for entering a residence just blocks away from the previous incident, according to a law enforcement source. The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, identified Marshall Coulter, 15, as the person arrested in Friday’s incident. Coulter, then 14, was shot in the head in July by New Orleans historic buildings inspector Merritt Landry after he scaled Landry’s fence in the middle of the night. Officer Frank Robertson, a spokesman for the New Orleans Police Department, said officers arrested...

According to Newsday, Martin said he would like to see his son's name "in the history books of modern days, taking his place beside Emmett Till." Martin's son was fatally shot by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who later was acquitted of second-degree murder under Florida's "stand your ground" law.

Ever since his CPAC Keynote Address in 2010, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has been one of the gold standards of modern American political conservatism. He has also been widely hailed as a political model for conservative African American politicians. And now, following recent revelations surrounding the highly suspicious shooting of Trayvon Martin, Rep. West has joined a growing bipartisan consensus calling for the case to be reopened, possibly even with Federal assistance. West’s statement, put out today by Talking Points Memo, resonates with controlled fury (emphasis added): itself in Sanford, Florida involving the shooting of 17-year-old Treyvon Martin. First of...